Seven score and nine years ago Abraham Lincoln brought forth what become known as the Gettysburg Address during the consecration ceremonies of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. It was less than seven months after the Battle of Gettysburg that resulted in the deaths of over 7,800. The cemetery and nearby battlefields have become one of the country’s most poignant historical attractions.
The cemetery is located on the southern edge of the town of Gettysburg. Less than a mile south is the Gettysburg Battlefield museum and visitors center operated by the National Park Service. The center includes 22,000 square feet of exhibit space and offers introductory films about the battle, the “Gettysburg Cyclorama” depicting “Pickett’s Charge”, research facilities and a bookstore. Pick up a copy of the official park map and guide for all the information you need about the self-guided auto tour and walking trails.
In addition to the Gettysburg National Cemetery, one of the most memorable aspects of a visit to Gettysburg are the dozens of monuments and memorials found at various locations on the battlefields. Following the end of the Civil War states and organizations raised funds to memorialize the participation of soldiers from their states and military groups.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Gettysburg is near the east-west center of Pennsylvania, just a few miles north of the Mason-Dixon line that separates Pennsylvania and Maryland. It’s about 150 miles from Philadelphia, 180 miles from Pittsburgh, 60 miles northwest of Baltimore and 80 miles north of Washington, DC. The popularity of Gettysburg as a tourism destination means that you’ll find plenty of places to stay near Gettysburg Battlefield and a collection of outlet stores on the outskirts of town.
