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 led to the Union victory.
The Gettysburg Battlefield is the area of the July 1–3, 1863, military engagements of the Battle of Gettysburg within and around the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Locations of military engagements extend from the 4-acre (1.6 ha) site of the first shot at Knoxlyn Ridge on the west of the borough, to East Cavalry Field on the east. A military engagement prior to the battle was conducted at the Gettysburg Railroad trestle over Rock Creek, which was burned on June 27.
The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg was a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was one of seven ELCA seminaries, one of the three seminaries in the Eastern Cluster of Lutheran Seminaries, and a member institution of the Washington Theological Consortium. It was founded in 1826 under prominent but controversial theologian and professor Samuel Simon Schmucker (1799-1873) for the recently organized General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States. The seminary was the oldest continuing Lutheran seminary in the United States until it was merged on July 1, 2017, after 189 years of operation, with the nearby and former rival Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia to form the United Lutheran Seminary. The new institution continues to use both campuses.
Rock Creek is an 18.9-mile-long (30.4 km) tributary of the Monocacy River in south-central Pennsylvania and serves as the border between Cumberland and Mount Joy townships. Rock Creek was used by the Underground Railroad and flows near several Gettysburg Battlefield sites, including Culp's Hill, the Benner Hill artillery location, and Barlow Knoll.
The 1913 Gettysburg reunion was a Gettysburg Battlefield encampment of American Civil War veterans for the Battle of Gettysburg's 50th anniversary. The June 29–July 4 gathering of 53,407 veterans was the largest ever Civil War veteran reunion. All honorably discharged veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans were invited, and veterans from 46 of the 48 states attended.
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.
Round Top is a populated place in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, near Little Round Top. It is notable for two Battle of Gettysburg hospitals, the 1884 Round Top Station, and several battlefield commemorative era attractions such as Round Top Park and the Round Top Museum. The unincorporated community lies on an elevated area of the north-south Taneytown Road with 3 intersections at Blacksmith Shop Road to the northeast, Wheatfield Road, and Sachs Road.
The Gettysburg Electric Railway was a borough trolley that provided summer access to Gettysburg Battlefield visitor attractions such as military engagement areas, monuments, postbellum camps, and recreation areas. Despite the 1896 Supreme Court ruling under the Takings Clause against the railway, battlefield operations continued until 1916. The trolley generating plant was leased by the Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company of Gettysburg to supply streetlights and homes until electricity was imported from Hanover.
The Round Top Branch was an extension of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad from the Gettysburg borough across the Gettysburg Battlefield to Round Top, Pennsylvania. The branch ran southward from the terminus of the railroad's main line, west of the school and St. Francis Xavier Cemetery, across the field of Pickett's Charge, south of Cemetery Ridge, east of Weikert Hill and Munshower Knoll, and through Round Top to a point between Little Round Top's east base and Taneytown Road. In addition to battlefield tourists, the line carried stone monoliths and statues for monuments during the battlefield's memorial association and commemorative eras and equipment, supplies and participants for Gettysburg Battlefield camps after the American Civil War.
The Pennsylvania State Memorial is a monument in Gettysburg National Military Park that commemorates the 34,530 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought in the July 1 to 3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. The memorial stands along Cemetery Ridge, the Union battle line on July 2, 1863. Completed in 1914, it is the largest of the state monuments on the Gettysburg Battlefield.
The 1938 Gettysburg reunion was an encampment of American Civil War veterans on the Gettysburg Battlefield for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The gathering included approximately 25 veterans of the battle with a further 1,359 Federal and 486 Confederate attendees out of the 8,000 living veterans of the war. The veterans averaged 94 years of age. Transportation, quarters, and subsistence was federally funded for each veteran and their accompanying attendant. If an attendant was needed it was provided. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's July 3 reunion address preceded the unveiling of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial; a newsreel with part of the address was included in the Westinghouse Time Capsule for the 1939 New York World's Fair.
United States v. Gettysburg Electric Ry. Co., 160 U.S. 668 (1896), was a case to prevent trolley operations on the Gettysburg Battlefield. The dispute began in August 1891 when the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association's board approved attorney Samuel Swope's motion to deny trolley right-of-way along GBMA roads. Despite the 1896 US Supreme Court ruling that the railway could be seized for historic preservation, as well as earlier legislative efforts to appropriate federal acquisition funds, create a War Department commission, and form the Gettysburg National Military Park; the trolley continued operations until obsolete in 1916.
The Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad was a railway line of Pennsylvania from Hunter's Run southward to Gettysburg in the 19th century. The north junction was with the South Mountain RR, and a crossing with the Hanover Junction, Hanover and Gettysburg Railroad's westward extension was at Gettysburg. The crossing also served as a junction for westbound trains to transfer southward across the Gettysburg Battlefield via the G. & H. R. R.'s Round Top Branch to the company's Little Round Top Park.
The Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railway was a Pennsylvania line from near Carlisle southward to Gettysburg operated by a subsidiary of the Reading Company. The line also included the Round Top Branch over the Gettysburg Battlefield to Round Top, Pennsylvania until c. 1942.
The Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association (GBMA) was an historic preservation membership organization and is the eponym for the battlefield's memorial association era. The association was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on April 13, 1864, after attorney David McConaughy recommended on August 14, 1863, a preservation association to sell membership stock for battlefield fundraising. McConaughy transferred his land acquired in 1863 to the GBMA, and the association's boardmembers were initially local officials. The GBMA sold stock to raise money, hired a superintendent at $1000/yr, added to McConaughy's land holdings, and operated a wooden observation tower on East Cemetery Hill from 1878–95.
Round Top Station was the southernmost station of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad and was located west of a blacksmith shop along the Taneytown Road that was in operation in 1880.
McPherson Ridge is a landform used for military engagements during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, when the I Corps of the Union Army had a headquarters on the ridge and was defeated by the Confederate division of Major General Henry Heth. The ridge has terrain above ~530 ft (160 m) and is almost entirely a federally protected area except for township portions at the southern end and along Pennsylvania Route 116, including a PennDOT facility. The northern end is a slight topographic saddle point on the west edge of Oak Ridge, and summit areas above 560 ft (170 m) include 4 on/near the Lincoln Highway, a broader summit south of the Fairfield Road, and the larger plateau at the northern saddle.
Bendersville was a Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad (G&H) stop east of Bendersville, Pennsylvania, with facilities of Frederick A. Asper that included a 3-story brick flour mill, grain elevator, and warehouse built in 1883. The depot was opposite the mill over the tracks.
Round Top Park was a Gettysburg Battlefield excursion park of 15 acres (6.1 ha) east of Little Round Top near the end of the Round Top Branch and owned by the Gettysburg & Harrisburg Railroad. In addition to amusements, the park provided services during the memorial association era for steamtrain and trolley tourists visiting nearby military sites of the Battle of Gettysburg.
