Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania

by Frederick Tilberg

STOP 10. NATIONAL CEMETERY.

Soon after the battle, Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, commissioned Attorney David Wills, of Gettysburg, to purchase this ground as a cemetery for the Union dead. While reburials from the temporary graves on the battlefield were in progress, a committee arranged for a formal dedication on November 19, 1863. President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address on that occasion. The National Monument, commemorating the Union soldiers who fell at Gettysburg, was dedicated, in 1869, on the site where Lincoln spoke. A memorial to the address was erected, in 1912, near the west gate of the cemetery.