“A house divided against itself cannot stand”
—Abraham Lincoln
Jared Frederick’s History 161 class gathers at the Peace Memorial at Gettysburg National Military Park.
The National Park Service was created in 1916 to protect our national parks and monuments—both those that had been put in place since the designation of Yellowstone as the first US national park in 1872 and any future areas. The Act reads: “The Service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments and reservations . . . which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Within a year of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association was formed in the interest of preserving the grounds on which the battle was fought. In 1895 the land became a national military park and in 1933, along with 55 other sites, Gettysburg became the responsibility of the new National Park Service. Since then millions of visitors have come through the gates to learn about the battle that was a major point of the US Civil War and the soldiers who fought and died in early July 1863
One of those visitors is Jared Frederick, instructor in history at Penn State Altoona and former park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. Because Gettysburg is less than 130 miles from Altoona, he can bring his History 161: “The Battle of Gettysburg in History and Memory” class to the battlefield and teach them more than any textbook could. “Nothing can compete with the power of place,” he says. “I can talk about the Battle of Gettysburg until I’m blue in the face but it won’t compare. There’s no better way to evoke meaning from a national park than going there.”
Student John Fitzgerald at the Cyclorama
And so on a bright fall morning students filed off the bus, ready to see what they have been studying; many had never visited the park before. Frederick gathered them next to the Peace Memorial, a site overlooking Gettysburg. He opened his talk by encouraging them to look at the topography, the way the town sits in a “bowl,” and then noted that three-quarters of the town still exists today, with bullet-hole scars as evidence of what had happened there. Frederick noted that the Peace Memorial “was dedicated in 1938 with a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt,” who encouraged using “this battlefield to promote unity and reconciliation.”
After the Peace Memorial, the students went to the Visitors Center, where they watched the film A New Birth of Freedom, toured the museum, and visited the Gettysburg Cyclorama, a 360-degree painting depicting Pickett’s Charge.
The rest of the day was spent visiting five significant landmarks on the battlefield: the Virginia Monument, Devil’s Den, Little Round Top, the Trostle farm, and the High Water Mark. Students had an assignment for the sites: using the landscape, tell the story of what happened at those places. Frederick said, “The land is a major character in this story; surely it has changed over time, some places more drastically than others. Use the tools at your disposal.”
The students heeded the call. At the Virginia Monument—the first Confederate monument placed at Gettysburg— in addition to discussing the battle they gave a demonstration on what it took to load and fire a cannon using an actual cannon as a visual aid. That was followed by presentations at Devils Den and Little Round Top, two locations that witnessed fighting on the second day of the battle. The house at the Trostle farm. which still stands, was used as a hospital. And the High Water Mark refers to the Confederates’ end point during Pickett’s Charge.
The class listens to a lecture by Andrew Samborsky at the Virginia Monument.
Andrew Samborsky, majoring in the history of western civilization, is one of the students who has seen Gettysburg before. “I’ve been here multiple times. It’s peaceful now but you can imagine the chaos that was going on.” What sticks with him is the still-existing evidence of the battle: “On Emmitsburg Road there is a fence piece with over 200 bullet holes.”
At Little Round Top, student Hunter Shetrom described the attack by the 15th Regiment Alabama and the response by 20th Maine, led by Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain. It was easy to imagine when he said, “20th Maine would have been on this side of the hill,” how the battle developed. Frederick interjected to add a little more history: “This is the day that defines the rest of Chamberlain’s life. He would become governor of Maine after the war.”
An experience such as this—a class of students getting an opportunity to witness a place, to apply what they were taught about a historical event—will stay with the students long after the class. Many more people will come to Gettysburg National Military Park as well, to learn what happened in those three days, and before and after. The original goal of preservation by the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, the hope for unity and reconciliation that Roosevelt mentioned over 70 years later, have brought dividends beyond their imagination.
—Therese Boyd, ’79
To see a video of the day, click here.
The Robert E. Lee statue at the Virginia Monument
Students Nicholas Theofilis, Hunter Shetrom, Liam Grimmer, and John Fitzgerald at Little Round Top