Soldiers' National Cemetery
Established just four months after the three-day battle of July 1863, the Soldiers' National Cemetery was laid out by landscape designer William Saunders in a sweeping semicircle of graves grouped by state and radiating from a central monument, the resting place of more than 3,500 Union dead. It was here, at the cemetery's dedication on November 19, 1863, that President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Visitors since have reported shadowy soldiers in uniform moving among the headstones, figures that stand near the central monument and vanish when approached, and the faint sound of drums, bugles, and weeping carried on the dusk wind. Photographs taken near the Soldiers' National Monument are said to capture floating orbs, mists, and unexplained pinpoints of light, which some take for the lanterns of sentries still walking their posts. The phenomena are described as strongest in early July and late November, the anniversaries of the battle and the dedication.
📍 Baltimore Pike & Taneytown Road, Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, PA 17325, Gettysburg, PA · Get directions