PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 
was delivered at this very location on November 19, 1863

during the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen Union soldiers and redefine the purpose of the war.

Between 46,000 and 51,000 soldiers from both armies were casualties, killed or wounded, in the three-day battle, the most costly in US history.

Sue and my cousin, Becky (above) a volunteer ranger with the National Park Service at Gettysburg, explore the Devil's Den, near both Big and Little Round Top, all prominent battle sites and popular with tourists to this day.

The Virginia Memorial (right) was the first Southern monument which was placed at Gettysburg in 1917 at a cost of $50,000.

The monument stands 41 feet high and is topped by Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller.  Virginia contributed over 19,000 men to the Confederate Army, the largest contingent of the Southern states.

The soldiers below Lee were representative of the wide variety of professions and ages of the state's soldiers.

Becky and Sue examine a canon at the Peace Light Memorial which was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, the 75th anniversary of the war's end.

The tower commemorating General James Longstreet's service in the Confederate Army towers 650 feet above the battlefield.  Longstreet first served as a major in the Union Army from 1842 to 1861 then joined the Confederates and rose to the rank of Lieutenant General from 1861 to 1865.

The Battle of Gettysburg, also known as the Gettysburg Cyclorama, is a cirular painting depicting Pickett's Charge in the climatic Confederate attack on the Union army, July 3, 1863.  It is displayed in the battlefield's Museum and Visitor's Center and is extremely popular with tourists.

Sallie, the mascot of the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry, is memorialized on the base of the regimental monument.  She was given to the regiment as a puppy and took part in all their battles, taking position at the end of the firing line and barking furiously at the enemy.

She was separated from the regiment during a retreat through the town.  After the battle the men returned to the scene of the first day's fighting and found Sallie, weak but alive and maintaining a vigil over the dead and dying.  She was killed at the Battle of Hatcher's Run in February 1865 and, in spite of heavy enemy fire, several men stopped to bury her.

When the monument was designed the regiment's survivors unanimously decided to include a tribute to their smallest comrade. (http://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/union-monuments/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-infantry/11th-pennsylvania/)