Soldiers National Monument

Soldiers’ National Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA


Established on Cemetery Hill, a central part of the battlefield. Landscape architect William Saunders was hired to design the cemetery and his plan was heralded for its simplicity and equality. Re-interments began that fall. Union dead were buried in semi-circular rows in state plots in the cemetery, the final resting place for defenders of the Union cause.

The cemetery, sited in the Gettysburg National Military Park, was dedicated on November 19, 1863, where President Abraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address.

Construction of the cemetery’s Soldiers' National Monument began in 1865 and culminated with a dedication ceremony on July 1, 1869. The Batterson-Canfield Company provided the design of the monument, a granite memorial with a shaft rising from a four-cornered pedestal and decorated with sculptured by Randolph Rogers.  At the sides of the pedestal are four marble statues representing war, history, plenty, and peace.  The statue “Genius of Liberty” crowns the monument’s shaft.

 

Soldiers' National Cemetery

 


Source: 1, 2





Updated May 1, 2018

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