great summer destination as the nation
turns 241 years old this July 4 is a
guided tour of Gettysburg National
Military Park in Pennsylvania.
The park contains 3,965 acres of
battlefields in and around the town of Gettysburg,
where 165,000 Southern and Northern soldiers met
over a period of three days in epic fighting. The battle,
fought July 1-3, 1863, was a turning point in the Civil
War, and the bloodiest. At the end of the three days,
22,000 wounded lay on the battlefield. An estimated
50,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner,
including 6,000 dead from North Carolina.
Five months later, President Abraham Lincoln spoke
on November 19, 1863, during the dedication of the
national military cemetery at Gettysburg following the
reburial of 3,512 Union soldiers fallen in the battle.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, beginning “fourscore
and seven years ago,” became the best known of all
his writings and speeches. The war would rage for two
additional years.
The Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association was
formed between 1863 and 1895, says licensed battlefield
guide Dave Hamacher. The group’s goal was to protect
the hallowed ground.
“It began to buy land by 1864 to preserve parts of the
battlefield,” Hamacher says. “They turned over some
600 acres to the War Department in 1895. The park was
established in 1895 by Congress.”
In 1933, administration of the then-2,500 acre, mon-ument-
studded Gettysburg National Military Park was
transferred to the National Park Service.
Battlefield visitors through the early 20th century
arrived by train and used horse-drawn jitneys to tour
the battlefield.
Nearby the North Carolina State Monument is this
tablet erected by the North Carolina Division, United
Daughters of the Confederacy, containing a list of the
North Carolina units of the Army of Northern Virginia and
this inscription: “Thirty-two North Carolina regiments
were in action at Gettysburg July 1, 2 and 3, 1863. One
Confederate soldier in every four who fell here was a
North Carolinian.”
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Virginia Memorial, Gettysburg National Military
Park. The Virginia monument was erected near the
place where Gen. Robert E. Lee watched troops from
Virginia on Cemetery Ridge, the large open field to
the east where the last Confederate assault, known as
Pickett’s Charge, occurred July 3, 1863. It was the first of
the Confederate State monuments at Gettysburg and
is the largest. At its tip stands a bronze statue of Gen.
Lee sitting astride his favorite horse, Traveller. At its
base, above a three-stepped Mount Airy granite base,
a bronze group of seven Confederate soldiers depicts
a professional man, a mechanic, an artist, a boy, a
businessman, a farmer and a youth.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
A
Get familiar
with the battles
and battlefields
in advance on
the internet,
plan what you
can’t miss, and
preorder a
private two-hour
guided
battlefield tour
in your vehicle
with a National
Park Service
licensed guide.
Before your
tour, do not miss
experiencing
the 360-degree
“Gettysburg
Cyclorama.” It is
invaluable.