- Gettysburg National Cemetery
Gettysburg National Cemetery is located on
Cemetery Hill inGettysburg, Pennsylvania . Shortly after theBattle of Gettysburg , with the support of Pennsylvania GovernorAndrew Curtin , the site was purchased and Union dead were moved from shallow and inadequate burial sites on the battlefield to the cemetery. Local attorney David Wills was the man primarily responsible for acquiring the land, overseeing the construction of the cemetery, and planning its dedication ceremony, although the initial concept and early organizational efforts were led by rival lawyerDavid McConaughy . Thelandscape architect William Saunders , founder of theNational Grange , designed the cemetery. It was originally called "Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg".The removal of Confederate dead from the field burial plots was not undertaken until seven years after the battle. From 1870 to 1873, upon the initiative of the Ladies Memorial Associations of Richmond, Raleigh, Savannah, and Charleston, 3,320 bodies were dug up and sent to cemeteries in those cities for reburial, 2,935 being interred in
Hollywood Cemetery , Richmond. Seventy-three bodies were reburied in home cemeteries.Saunders's design had two facets: first, the Soldiers National Monument was placed at the center, promoting the Union victory and the valor of the fallen soldiers; second, the graves were arranged in a series of semi-circles around the monument, emphasizing the fundamental egalitarian nature of U.S. society, with all the graves considered equal. The original plan was to arrange the plots in essentially random order, but resistance from the states caused this to be modified and the graves are grouped by state, with two sections for unknowns and one section for the regular army. (In later years, additional graves were added outside the original section for the dead of the
Spanish-American War andWorld War I .) There are numerous other monuments in the cemetery, including the New York Monument, the first statue to Maj. Gen.John F. Reynolds , the "Friend to Friend Memorial" in the National Cemetery Annex, and the monument to Lincoln's address.The cemetery was dedicated on
November 19 ,1863 . The main speaker at the ceremony wasEdward Everett , but it was here thatAbraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech, theGettysburg Address . The night before, Lincoln slept in Wills's house on the main square in Gettysburg, which is now a landmark administered by theNational Park Service . The cemetery was completed in March 1864 with the last of 3,512 Union dead were reburied. It became a National Cemetery onMay 1 ,1872 , when control was transferred to the War Department. It is currently administered by the National Park Service as part ofGettysburg National Military Park and contains the remains of over 6,000 individuals who served in a number of American wars, from theMexican-American War to the present day.3,512 Union soldiers were buried in the cemetery; of these, 979 are unknown.
ee also
*
Friend to Friend Masonic Memorial
*Gettysburg Battlefield External links
* [http://home.ptd.net/~nikki/gburgcem.htm Gettysburg National Cemetery listing]
* [http://www.nps.gov/gett/gncem.htm Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg National Military Park]
* [http://www.nps.gov/getc/index.htm National Park Service Site]
* [http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/44gettys/44gettys.htm "Choices and Commitments: The Soldiers at Gettysburg," a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan]
* [http://www.dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0007026.htm Soldiers' National Monument]
* [http://www.dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0007024.htm New York Monument]
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