Volume_29_Issue_2

Preservation & Progress Volume 29, Issue 2 3 T he story widely known is the greatest battle of the American Civil War raging for three days (July 1–3, 1863) in the small borough of Gettysburg, resulting in some 51,000 casualties and ending Southern hopes of victory through invasion of the North. Thought about much less is that for 155 years, Gettysburg has been primarily a place of healing, conciliation, forgiveness, and redemption. This began on the actual and richly symbolic date of Independence Day, July 4, as residents streamed out of hiding places to deal with the carnage. Imagine yourself as 1 of the 2,400 residents of Gettysburg. Thousands lie dead and unburied on the fields. Thousands more are wounded, with some simply seeking final moments of comfort as they pass from this life. Others might be saved, but just as many surgeons are leaving with the armies. Dead horses must be burned before they incubate disease. Equipment litters the countryside. Refugees are streaming back into town, and especially poignant, the families of free African-Americans, forced to flee Gettysburg because if captured they would have been sent South into slavery. Immediately after the battle, facing this chaos, Gettysburg residents begin feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, and helping the injured. With most of the men off to war or casualties of it, these noble acts of civility fell largely to the women. Six-months pregnant, Elizabeth Thorn helps bury over 100 men, which is why a monument to a pregnant woman resides in Gettysburg. Lydia Hamilton Smith—African mother, Irish father— starts her daily trips on a wagon into the countryside, explaining the carnage at Gettysburg and returning with donations for people in need. Jennie Wade is the only civilian killed during the battle while baking biscuits, and local residents tend to her extended family. A tent city hospital called Camp Letterman is hastily erected right outside of town, where men of both armies are treated. Quaker nurses stream into town from outlying communities to care for the wounded; convalescing Confederates write letters home to loved ones saying they are being cared for just as well as Union soldiers. Abraham Lincoln comes to town several months later to deliver the carefully chosen words of the Gettysburg Address. His message strikes a chord because it does not gloat about a Union victory, nor malign Confederates, but instead simply honors the brave men who consecrated the battleground. Lincoln offers his audience a blended message of personal humility, healing, and redemption. Years later, grand reunions bring soldiers from both armies. The 50th reunion in 1913 brings 50,000 soldiers, now mostly in their 70s, to spend three days tending emotional wounds and reminiscing. President Wilson describes them as enemies no longer, but as generous friends, the quarrel forgotten. The high point of reconciliation comes when Confederates reenacting Pickett’s Charge—the disastrous final attack at the center of the Union line—are met with cheers and handshakes from Union men, with what is described by Ken Burns as “brotherly love and affection.” Slavery was glossed over at the 50th veteran reunion, and once again in 1938, on the 75th anniversary of the battle, when a small handful of veterans, now mostly in their 90s, listen to President Franklin Roosevelt dedicate the Eternal Light Peace Memorial; it still burns brightly on our grounds. Roosevelt speaks of divided loyalties now meeting in a united loyalty. Finally, in 1963, the 100th year anniversary of the battle, Vice President Lyndon Johnson speaks directly to the need for racial reconciliation the year before Congress passes the Civil Rights Act. Gettysburg will always be appropriately remembered as a battlefield, but its significance to the American democratic experiment runs much deeper. Immediately after the battle, residents make Gettysburg a place of healing and kindness, of remembrance and conciliation. Today Gettysburg is the precise opposite of our society’s endless self-promotion; it is where so many gave what Lincoln poetically called their “last full measure of devotion.” That message is a central part of our public education efforts that have now hit ten of the fifty states. As Friends, you are a driving force of this new movement. Together, we will engage a whole new generation in not only the three epic days of battle but also the inspiring 155 years that followed. A BOVE : A group of soldiers, some in uniform and some with crutches, pose in front of the woods at the hospital at Camp Letterman in Gettysburg. By Matthew C. Moen, Ph.D. T HE G ETTYSBURG B EYOND THE B ATTLE