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

Auwaerter, John

The First Day – Union 1st Corps Battlefield is part of Gettysburg National Military Park, is primarily in Cumberland Township, 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. Over three days, July 1 to 3, 1863, intense fighting in the fields and woods at the outskirts of the small town of Gettysburg became the “High Water Mark of the Confederacy,” when the Union victory halted Confederate Major General Robert E. Lee’s ambitious advance into the Northern states. With over 51,000 soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing, Gettysburg was a turning point in the war that prompted President Abraham Lincoln to pen his renowned “Gettysburg Address,” delivered on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the cemetery, then known as the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Significant sites on the battlefield began to be preserved almost immediately after the 1863 battle, and in 1895 the park came under federal ownership. Administered by the National Park Service (NPS) since 1933, the park now incorporates 6,032 acres of land across which the battle, its aftermath, and commemoration occurred. 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. The commemorative park landscape developed by the GBMA and the War Department remains, although details have been lost to accommodate automobiles and visitation, reduce maintenance, and restore the 1863 battlefield landscape. Large areas of battlefield have since been added to the park, some of which remain in a rural or agricultural state, while adjacent battlefield lands outside of the park reflect suburban development that occurred in large part in the decades after World War II. Gettysburg National Military Park has compiled extensive documentation on the battlefield landscape and has implemented plans to rehabilitate many areas to enhance their 1863 character.

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

Series