Gettysburg Rostrum

The first day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War took place on July 1, 1863, and began as an engagement between isolated units of the Army of Northern Virginia under Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under Union Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. It soon escalated into a major battle which culminated in the outnumbered and defeated Union forces retreating to the high ground south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The first-day battle proceeded in three phases as combatants continued to arrive at the battlefield. In the morning, two brigades of Confederate Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division (of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's Third Corps) were delayed by dismounted Union cavalrymen under Brig. Gen. John Buford. As infantry reinforcements arrived under Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds of the Union I Corps, the Confederate assaults down the Chambersburg Pike were repulsed, although Gen. Reynolds was killed. By early afternoon, the Union XI Corps, commanded by Major General Oliver Otis Howard, had arrived, and the Union position was in a semicircle from west to north of the town. The Confederate Second Corps under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell began a massive assault from the north, with Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes's division attacking from Oak Hill and Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early's division attacking across the open fields north of town. The Union lines generally held under extremely heavy pressure, although the salient at Barlow's Knoll was overrun. The third phase of the battle came as Rodes renewed his assault from the north and Heth returned with his entire division from the west, accompanied by the division of Maj. Gen. W. Dorsey Pender. Heavy fighting in Herbst's Woods (near the Lutheran Theological Seminary) and on Oak Ridge finally caused the Union line to collapse. Some of the Federals conducted a fighting withdrawal through the town, suffering heavy casualties and losing many prisoners; others simply retreated. They took up good defensive positions on Cemetery Hill and waited for additional attacks. Despite discretionary orders from Robert E. Lee to take the heights "if practicable," Richard Ewell chose not to attack. Historians have debated ever since how the battle might have ended differently if he had found it practicable to do so.

Cemetery Ridge is a geographic feature in Gettysburg National Military Park, south of the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that figured prominently in the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1 to July 3, 1863. It formed a primary defensive position for the Union Army during the battle, roughly the center of what is popularly known as the "fish-hook" line. The Confederate States Army launched attacks on the Union positions on the second and third days of the battle, but were driven back both times.

Gettysburg National Cemetery is a United States national cemetery created for Union casualties from the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg, which was fought between July 1 to 3, 1863, resulted in the largest number of casualties of any Civil War battle but also was considered the war's turning point, leading ultimately to the Union victory. Gettysburg National Cemetery is located just outside Gettysburg Borough to the south, in Adams County, Pennsylvania. The land was part of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and the cemetery is within Gettysburg National Military Park administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior.Originally called Soldiers' National Cemetery, U.S. 16th President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865, served 1861–1865), delivered his Gettysburg Address at the cemetery's consecration, November 19, 1863. That day is observed annually at the cemetery and in the town as "Remembrance Day" with a parade/procession and memorial ceremonies by thousands of Civil War reenactor troops, both Union Army/United States Army and Confederate States Army and descendants heritage organizations led by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). The cemetery contains 3,512 interments from the Civil War, including the graves of 979 unknowns. It also has sections for veterans of the Spanish–American War (1898), World War I (1917–1918), and other wars, along with graves of the veterans' spouses and children. The total number of interments exceeds 6,000.Battlefield monuments, memorials, and markers are scattered throughout the cemetery, and its stone walls, iron fences and gates, burial and section markers, and brick sidewalk are listed as contributing structures within Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District.

The Gettysburg National Museum was a Gettysburg Battlefield visitor attraction on the south border of the Gettysburg borough. Established by George D. Rosensteel after working at his uncle's 1888 Round Top Museum, the facility had an interpretive Battle of Gettysburg map using incandescent lights and was acquired by the National Park Service for use as the 1974–2008 Gettysburg National Military Park museum and visitor center after the Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg and before the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center.

The Battle of Gettysburg, also known as the Gettysburg Cyclorama, is a cyclorama painting by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux depicting Pickett's Charge, the climactic Confederate attack on the Union forces during the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.

Cemetery Hill is a landform on the Gettysburg Battlefield that was the scene of fighting each day of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863). The northernmost part of the Army of the Potomac defensive "fish-hook" line, the hill is gently sloped and provided a site for American Civil War artillery (cf. the heavily wooded, adjacent Culp's Hill).

Evergreen Cemetery – formerly called Citizen's Cemetery and Ever Green Cemetery – is a historic 29.12 acre rural cemetery located just outside Gettysburg Borough, in Cumberland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District, and is surrounded by Gettysburg National Military Park and Soldiers' National Cemetery. The cemetery played a strategic role in the July 1 to 3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. Four months after the battle, at the dedication of the immediately-adjacent National Cemetery, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his "Gettysburg Address" from a platform in Evergreen Cemetery.

The Soldiers' National Monument is a Gettysburg Battlefield memorial which is located at the central point of Gettysburg National Cemetery. It honors the battle's soldiers and tells an allegory of "peace and plenty under freedom … following a heroic struggle." In addition to an inscription with the last 4 lines of the Gettysburg Address, the shaft with 4 buttresses has 5 statues:: 166  A large statue representing the concept of Liberty surmounts the pedestal. Eighteen large bronze stars circling the pedestal below this statue represent the eighteen Union states with buried dead. A statue is located at each corner near the base. They represent War, History, Peace, and Plenty. War is represented by a statue of an American soldier who recounts the story of the battle to History. In turn, History records, with stylus and tablet, the achievements of the battle and the names of the honored dead. A statue of an American mechanic and his tools illustrates Peace. Plenty is a female figure with a sheaf of wheat and the fruits of the earth that typify peace and abundance as the soldier's crowning triumph.

The Consecration of the Soldiers' National Cemetery was the ceremony at which U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. In addition to the 15,000 spectators, attendees included six state governors: Andrew Gregg Curtin of Pennsylvania, Augustus Bradford of Maryland, Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, Horatio Seymour of New York, Joel Parker of New Jersey, and David Tod of Ohio. Reporters present included Joseph Gilbert (Associated Press), Charles Hale (Boston Advertiser),: 14  John Russell Young (Philadelphia Press); and Cincinnati Commercial,: 13  New York Tribune, & The New York Times reporters.: 15 

The Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District is a district of contributing properties and over 1000 historic contributing structures and 315 historic buildings, located in Adams County, Pennsylvania. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 19, 1975. Most of the contributing elements of the Gettysburg Battlefield are on the protected federal property within the smaller Gettysburg National Military Park. Historic structures include the Battle of Gettysburg monuments and memorials. Historic buildings range from a 1776 Colonial tavern to a vacant 1962 Modernist museum (Demolished in 2013). Contributing structures include postbellum artifacts such as the 1895 Big Round Top Observation Tower Foundation Ruin, the 1893 Electric Trolley Bed, and the only remaining Tipton Boundary Marker.

The Friend to Friend Masonic Memorial is a Gettysburg Battlefield monument depicting the "Armistead-Bingham incident"[2] after Pickett's Charge in which Union Army Captain Henry H. Bingham assisted mortally wounded Confederate Brigadier General Lewis Addison Armistead, both Freemasons. (It was said that "as he went down he gave a Masonic sign asking for assistance," although this is disputed.) Although Armistead's sword was captured and later returned in 1906, Armistead entrusted other personal effects (i.e., spurs, watch chain, seal and pocketbook) with Bingham after Armistead was shot twice. En route to a Union field hospital on the Spangler Farm, where he would die two days later, Armistead briefly met Capt. Bingham, and after learning that he was on the staff of General Winfield Scott Hancock, a Freemason as well, he asked Bingham to pass along the items with a message to Hancock (see below). Having been wounded at about the same time, General Hancock, who was a "valued friend" of Armistead's from before the war, when they served together in the Federal army, would not see Armistead before he died.[3] The initial record that documented this memorial's depiction had been written by 1870 when James Walker painted the 20 ft × 7.5 ft (6.1 m × 2.3 m) The Repulse of Longstreet's Assault at the Battle of Gettysburg[4] with "Armistead, mortally wounded, is seated on the grass, and is in the act of giving his watch and spurs to his friend, Captain Bingham." In 1887, the Lewis A. Armistead marker was placed at the high water mark of the Confederacy. The 1993 film Gettysburg dramatized the meeting (also at the location where Armistead fell): "Tell General Hancock for me that I have done him and you all an injury which I shall regret the longest day I live."[5]

The Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center is a Gettysburg National Military Park facility, with a museum about the American Civil War, the 1884 Gettysburg Cyclorama, and the tour center for licensed Battlefield Guides and for buses to see the Gettysburg Battlefield and Eisenhower National Historic Site. The museum displays artifacts including cannon, firearms, and uniforms, and includes an exhibit gallery and theater. Additional facilities are a "computer resource room", a bookstore with gifts, and a restaurant.