Gettysburg National Military Park
Gettysburg National Military Park.The nucleus for the park began shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, when the state‐sponsored Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association sought to raise private funds for a permanent Soldier's National Cemetery there. In October 1863, the association began exhuming 3,354 bodies of Union soldiers for permanent burial on a site at the edge of the battlefield. In November 1864, at the dedication ceremonies for the cemetery, President Abraham Lincoln delivered what later became known as the Gettysburg Address, a brief address in which he defined American democracy and sanctified the war for the Union.
In 1895, in order to forestall railroad lines being built through the battlefield, Congress established the Gettysburg National Military Park. The National Park Service succeeded the War Department in administering the site in 1933. In 1972, a...
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