"Gettysburg: A New Birth of Freedom" Commemorative Ceremony

    Improve listing Presented by

This evening event will take place on an outdoor stage near Meade’s Headquarters on the Gettysburg battlefield and will include music, a keynote address, and “Voices of History,” a dramatic reading of eyewitness accounts written by soldiers and citizens swept into the events of the battle and its tragic aftermath. Keynote speaker will be historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Country music artist Trace Adkins will sing the National Anthem accompanied by the United States Military Academy's West Point Band.

The ceremony will end with a procession to the Soldiers’ National Cemetery to see luminaries marking each of the more than 3,500 graves of soldiers killed in the battle of Gettysburg. The ceremony is sponsored by Gettysburg National Military Park and the Gettysburg Foundation. Free.

Musical prelude: 7:30 p.m.
Ceremony: 8 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Procession to the Soldiers’ National Cemetery
Luminaries in the Soldiers’ National Cemetery from 9:00 p.m. until 10:30 p.m.