First Day - Union 1st Corps Battlefield: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Gettysburg National Military Park

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

The First Day – Union 1st Corps Battlefield is part of Gettysburg National Military Park adjacent to the Borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The park preserves the site of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, the Gettysburg National Cemetery, and approximately 1,830 commemorative monuments, markers, tablets, and statuary erected by Civil War veterans and citizens. The First Day – Union 1st Corps Battlefield covers approximately 880 acres north and west of the Borough of Gettysburg, and encompasses the battle lines of the Union 1st Corps on July 1, 1863 and some Confederate positions. It is characterized by a rural landscape that existed during the battle and a commemorative park landscape developed between the 1880s and 1930s. The 1863 battlefield landscape features low ridges, fields, fences, orchards, public roads, and woodlots across four geographic areas: Seminary Ridge, McPherson’s Ridge, Oak Ridge, and Herr’s Ridge. The battlefield landscape also includes the First Shot site, just over a mile west of the Herr’s Ridge, where the purported first shot of the battle occurred. Within three of these areas is the commemorative park landscape comprised of linear corridors along the military avenues (park drives), with larger areas of commemorative landscape at Reynolds Grove, the crest of McPherson Ridge, Oak Ridge Grounds, and the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. Beginning in 1864 the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association (GBMA) and battle veterans began developing a park for the people of the United States to “commemorate the heroic deeds, the struggles and the triumphs of their brave defenders.” This work of battlefield preservation and commemoration was continued by the U.S. War Department into the late 1920s, when the commemorative park reached its height. Under the subsequent civilian administration of the NPS that began in 1933, battlefield preservation took precedent over commemoration. The surrounding rural landscape was being transformed at this time due to shifts in agriculture, transportation, and urban growth. SIGNIFICANCE SUMMARY The First Day – Union 1st Corps Battlefield is nationally significant under Criterion A in the areas of Military and Politics/Government for its role in the Battle of Gettysburg and Criterion C in the areas of Landscape Architecture and Commemoration for features related to the preservation and memorialization of the battlefield. The site may also be significant in the area of Archeology, but such evaluation is beyond the scope of this CLI. The period of significance for the battlefield is the same as that of the park, 1863-1938. Criteria Consideration F, for a property primarily commemorative in intent with its own historical significance, also applies at this battlefield.

First Day - Union 1st Corps Battlefield: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Gettysburg National Military Park

Series