Through our great good fortune, in our youth
our hearts were touched with fire.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
On October 3, 1888, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the survivors of the 20th Maine gathered around a large granite monument being dedicated to the memory of their regiment. Chamberlain, now sixty years old, spoke with great eloquence on what the battlefield had come to mean for the nation:
The 20th Maine Reunion, 1889. Joshua Chamberlain is seated at center right. Photo credit: Maine Historical Society.
Here the 20th Maine Regiment Col. J. L. Chamberlain Commanding.
Forming the Extreme Left of the National Line of Battle.
On the 2nd Day of July, 1863. Repulsed the Attack of the Extreme Right
of Longstreet’s Corps. and Charged in Turn, Capturing 308 Prisoners.
The Regiment Lost 38 Killed or Mortally Wounded,
and 93 Wounded Out of 358 Engaged.
This Monument Erected By Survivors of the Regiment.
a.d. 1888. Marks Very Nearly the Spot Where Colors Stood
The 20th Maine Infantry Memorial on Little Round Top. Photo Credit: Jen Goellnitz.
In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and loi the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.
The battlefield at Gettysburg had become a sacred place to all Americans. In 1864, a group of citizens established the Gettysburg Memorial Association, which was dedicated to preserving the battlefield as a memorial to the Union army. In 1895, the land holdings were transferred to the Federal Government, which designated Gettysburg as a National Military Park. It became a memorial to both armies as veterans from either side eventually came and dedicated monuments to the memory of their troops’ heroic deeds in July 1863. The administration of the park was transferred to the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service in 1933, which continues to this day.
Union and Confederate veterans meet as friends at the fiftieth anniversary of the battle in 1913. Photo credit: Library of Congress.
Gettysburg eventually became hallowed ground where both sides came to find peace, and in time, to reconcile with former enemies. Two grand reunions were held there, the first in 1913 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the battle. It was the largest Civil War reunion ever held with over 53,000 veterans in attendance. President Woodrow Wilson expressed the mood of the occasion in his July 4, 1913 speech: “We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.”
The second reunion was held in 1933 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the battle. Now in their nineties, the last of the veterans came for one final visit to their sacred field. President Franklin Roosevelt spoke at the dedication of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial on July 3 of that year, noting, “Surely, all this is holy ground . . . Here, at Gettysburg, here in the presence of the spirits of those who fell on this ground, we give renewed assurance that the passions of war are moldering in the tombs of Time and the purposes of peace are flowing today in the hearts of a united people.”
Some of the last surviving veterans of the Gettysburg battle shake hands over the stone wall at the Angle during the seventy-fifth anniversary in 1933. Photo credit: National Archives.
Gettysburg is the best preserved battlefield of the Civil War today and rightfully so. Over a million visitors each year travel to the site of the battle “to ponder and dream” as Chamberlain so perfectly foretold. If the Civil War is considered the crossroads of the American soul, then Gettysburg is surely the spiritual center of that experience for both North and South. For this author, the battlefield remains a stark reminder of the great sacrifices of both sides—a testament to the courage and loyalty of the American character—and of the cost of forging a nation dedicated to its ideal that all men are created equal. The Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s speech are timeless reminders from our epic past of what it truly means to be an American.