This Month's Headlines:

Editor's Letter

It has been a summer for the record books. We welcome the approach of autumn in historic Gettysburg, and at The Gettysburg Experience, we offer our continued array of articles of historical interest, delicious fall recipes, and our updated Calendar of Events, all beginning on page 11 of this issue. Read More >

The Pennsylvania Memorial: "A Most Imposing Monument"

September 27, 1910 was a blistering day in Gettysburg. The weather assumed an appearance more like mid-July than early autumn, but the crowds came, disregarding the elements. Thousands of Pennsylvania veterans who had fought in the war, and particularly in the Battle of Gettysburg, had waited for years for this moment.

           

Over twenty thousand attended the dedication of the Pennsylvania Memorial, which remains the largest monument on the battlefield. “To the veterans the event was the treat of their lives, a day to which they had looked forward for two score years.” The citizens of New York had already dedicated a state memorial in 1893, and before them, Vermont was the first to receive a state memorial at Gettysburg in 1889. Since Pennsylvania soldiers constituted one third of the Union army at Gettysburg, the veterans of the Keystone State had anxiously anticipated their own state monument. And the Pennsylvania State Memorial did not disappoint them.¹ Read More >

Decade by Decade

100 Years of History

A century is a long time. Or is it?

           

The following contains a glimpse at the last ten decades, for the years ending in the number six:

           

The Year 1926: One hundred years ago, the stars began to align for a future disaster. The Great War had ended, and the Spanish influenza, a terrible pandemic that caused millions of deaths globally, had also ended. Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States; his Vice-President, Charles Dawes, was the son of decorated Civil War veteran and Gettysburg commander Rufus Dawes. The United States enjoyed great prosperity during the time known as The Roaring Twenties. Read More >

A Lincoln Peculiarity

In 1912, an elderly man in the sunset of his life wrote a letter to his grandson to share a memory he had of his old friend, Abraham Lincoln. 

Wiggo Scherr, a Danish immigrant who worked as a clerk at the general store in Springfield, Illinois, saw Abraham Lincoln almost daily as the future President’s law office was just a few blocks away. The store’s owner, Mr. Lamb, had once been Lincoln’s client, and the pair remained friends. The store not only supplied an abundance of goods to the townspeople, it was a place where merchants and businessmen gathered on a regular basis. And Abraham Lincoln was often among them. Read More >

Editor's Corner: Facts About the Constitution

The American Revolution came to an end in 1783. Because of their new-found freedom, the thirteen colonies jealously held to their own local independence. A loose form of government, called The Articles of Confederation, had already been adopted in 1777 and ratified in 1781, even before the war officially ended.

           

By early 1787, it was obvious that The Articles of Confederation did not suffice, as multiple sectional issues arose. Ninety delegates were summoned to the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) for meetings to amend The Articles of Confederation. Only fifty-five came, and soon the delegates realized that they needed to abolish what had been put in place, and create an entirely new system of government. The meetings took four months, resulting in the document that still resonates today, and has served as the template for many other republics around the world. Read More >

Recipes