Gettysburg National Military Park

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Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center.
Photo courtesy of Gettysburg National Military Park.

Gettysburg National Military Park

Museum and Visitor Center

1195 Baltimore Pike (Route 97)

Gettysburg, PA

Website:  Gettysburg National Military Park

Gettysburg  (site of the Gettysburg Foundation)

The Treasure:  The Gettysburg NationalMilitary ParkMuseum and Visitor Centerpreserves approximately 300,000 artifacts and 700,000 archival documents that bear witness to the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, and a century-and-a-half of reflections and commemorations. 

Accessibility:  The park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. from April through October and from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. from November through March.  The Museum and Visitor Center is open daily from 8 to 6 from April through October and 8 to 5 from November through March.

Background:  “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.”

Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburg Address

delivered on November 19, 1863

Ranger program at Devil's Den.
Photo courtesy of Gettysburg National Military Park.

Lincoln went on to say that the ground of Gettysburgwas hallowed not by his words but by the men who fought here. Strolling through the nearly 6,000-acre park today, perhaps on one of the informative ranger guided programs, it can sometimes be difficult to imagine war visiting this now-bucolic landscape of fields, pastures, orchards, and woodlots. People come here to reflect upon a turning point in the country’s history, a nation’s destiny pivoting upon the single bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil. With Confederate troops under the leadership of General Robert E. Lee and Army of the Potomactroops under General George Meade, more than 160,000 men clashed here. Nearly a third of them—51,000—died here.

While the scope of the Battle of Gettysburg can best be appreciated by walking the park grounds, hundreds of individual stories are evoked by the artifacts displayed at the GettysburgNational MilitaryPark Museumand Visitor Center. These artifacts offer a tangible link to the lives of the soldiers. Each piece has a story to tell. Someone wore this uniform, played this bugle, read this letter, drank from this cup, and shot this gun. Robert E. Lee sat at this camp desk. A soldier carried this pocket-size Manual of the Christian Soldier, and he died when a bullet passed clean through it. You can see the bullet hole.

For many years, Gettysburg’s visitor center was located on Cemetery Ridge, the famous site of Pickett’s Charge, a last-gasp Confederate infantry assault on the third day of battle. With the donation of 50 acres neighboring the park in 2000, the Gettysburg Foundation and the National Park Service were able to build a new center, enabling them to return the original Cemetery Ridge site to park land, more appropriate for interpretation and commemoration. In 2008, the new Museum and Visitor Center opened, with nearly double the amount of museum exhibition space than previously available.

John Brown's cell door.
Photo courtesy of
Gettysburg National
Military Park.

Save America’s Treasures funding contributed to the conservation and rehousing of many of the artifacts now displayed in the exhibition areas. It is one of the country’s great Civil War collections. The core of it dates back to a collection that began all the way back in 1863 when 16-year-old John Rosensteel began picking up interesting items, instituting a family tradition of collecting Gettysburg artifacts. Later bequeathed to the National Park Service, the George Rosensteel Collection continues to be the center piece of the museum.

The exhibits at the Museum and Visitor Centerinterpret the Battle of Gettysburg from many perspectives, including the origins of the conflict. A door from the Harpers Ferryprison cell where John Brown served time during his trial is among the most popular artifacts. It is a potent reminder of the many tensions that once enflamed the country, as incident after incident led inexorably to civil war.

Notes from the Editor:  This blog entry posted on July 3, 2013, as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Other Recommended Sites:  From the Museum and Visitor Center, shuttle buses are available to the neighboring Eisenhower National Historic Site, the home and farm of General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Temporary entrenchments erected by Federal troops on Gettysburg's
Little Round Top, with Big Round Top in the distance.
Photographed in July 1863 by Timothy H. O'Sullivan,
from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

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© 2013 Lee Price