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 You Are @ the Soldiers' National Cemetery - Gettysburg, PA
N 39° 49.062 W 077° 13.928
18S E 308951 N 4409907
A beautiful marker just inside the Taneytown side National Cemetery gates not only tells you exactly where you are but also tells the tale of this magnificent National Cemetery and Lincoln's few, brief remarks made at the dedication ceremony.
Waymark Code: WMCN6Q
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 09/24/2011
Views: 6
There is a widespread collection of these long horizontal markers, each one telling a little piece about the battle of Gettysburg. Some of the markers have a You-Are-Here feature and most of the others do not. This marker tells about the after affects and the necessity for building a cemetery for the soldiers as a response to the overwhelming amount of bodies littered about the battlefield and hastily buried. An exact copy of this marker can be found at the Baltimore Pike entrance to this National Cemetery, also just inside the gates.
The marker is a decent size, larger than most and is secured in a thick, black, metal frame about four feet or so off the ground and tilted to allow for easy reading. When entering the gates, the marker is right off to the right side, in the road, just before the Lincoln Speech Memorial which is on the same side. The marker was placed by the Gettysburg National Military Park but I am unsure as to when this was installed.
The marker is also an excellent tour guide as it gives you your exact position and the relative location of every site there is to see in side this cemetery including all monuments, memorials and markers, famous burials and other important particular. I used the You-Are-Here feature to figure out where I was in relation to the other spots i wanted to see, especially the various Lincoln related markers and monuments as well as the unknown soldier burial sites.
The marker reads:
"Here where they fell,
Oft shall the widow's tear be shed,
Oft shall fond parents mourn their dead;
The orphan here shall kneel and weep..."
Hymn by Benjamin B. French
Sung at cemetery dedication
November 19, 1863
Soldiers' National Cemetery contains the graves of more than 6,000 United States servicemen, including 3,580 Union soldiers killed in the Civil War. Nearly half of the Civil War burials are unknown soldiers.
A few days after the battle, Andrew Curtin, Governor of Pennsylvania, visited Gettysburg and was deeply moved by what he saw. Bodies of soldiers had been hurriedly buried on the battlefield, and some had not been buried at all. Curtin and representatives of Northern states took steps to create a national cemetery. Beginning in October 1863, bodies were carefully removed from the field and re-interred here. The work took five months.
On November 19, 1863, before the burials were completed, government officials, battle veterans, and citizens assembled to dedicate the cemetery. Near the end of the ceremonies, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, offered a few remarks - his Gettysburg Address.
Where was Lincoln?
President Abraham Lincoln was standing on a platform near the site of the Soldiers' National Monument when he delivered the famed Gettysburg Address. >
Location Name: Soldiers' National Cemetery aka Gettysburg National Cemetery
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Visit Instructions:
A photo of either you or your GPS at the site is welcomed but not required.
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