Gettysburg Experiences

In 1864, a group of concerned citizens established the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association whose purpose was to preserve portions of the battlefield as a memorial to the Union Army that fought here. The GBMA transferred their land holdings to the Federal government in 1895, which designated Gettysburg as a National Military Park. A Federally-appointed commission of Civil War veterans oversaw the park's development as a memorial to both armies by identifying and marking the lines of battle. Administration of the park was transferred to the Department of the Interior, National Park Service in 1933, which continues in its mission to protect, preserve and interpret the Battle of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address to park visitors.

The Shriver House Museum is a lasting reminder of how the Battle of Gettysburg affected the residents of this south-central Pennsylvania town. The fully restored home of George Shriver is one of the most visited sites in Gettysburg. To enter the house today is to step back in time to see what life was like before the Civil War altered the Shrivers' lives forever.

Travel back in time with a guide in period attire as you walk through the Shrivers’ meticulously restored 1860 home to learn the other side of the story - the civilian side of the Battle of Gettysburg. Connect to the past while you listen to the story of George, Hettie, Sadie and Mollie unfold as you move from room to room to appreciate what life was like before, during, and after the Civil War.

The Gettysburg National Cemetery is the final resting place for over 6,000 United States soldiers and veterans. Of these, over 3,500 were among the United States soldiers who died at the Battle of Gettysburg. It was here at the cemetery’s dedication ceremony, just a few months after the battle, that President Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address.

After the battle, bodies lay scattered throughout Gettysburg’s farmlands. The dead were hastily buried in shallow graves on the battlefield, crudely identified by pencil writing on wooden boards. As weeks passed rain and wind eroded the impromptu graves. In response, Gettysburg’s citizens called for the creation of a soldiers’ cemetery for the proper burial of the Federal dead. The site chosen encompassed the hill from which the Federal center repulsed Pickett’s Charge during the battle. Confederate burials did not receive placement in the national cemetery. Efforts in the 1870s by Confederate veterans' societies eventually relocated 3,200 Confederate remains to cemeteries to the South. 

Between 1898 and 1968, the government added sections to accommodate the graves of veterans from the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The cemetery’s annex is located due north of the historic original 17-acre property. Today, more than 6,000 veterans lay at rest in the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

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