Soldiers' National Cemetery
Laid out just four months after the three-day battle of July 1863, the Soldiers' National Cemetery was designed by landscape architect William Saunders as 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 dedication on November 19, 1863, that President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
Visitors since have reported shadowy uniformed soldiers drifting among the headstones, figures that vanish when approached, and the faint sound of drums, bugles, and weeping on the dusk wind. Photographs near the Soldiers' National Monument are said to catch floating orbs and unexplained pinpoints of light, taken by some for the lanterns of sentries still walking their posts, strongest in early July and late November.
📍 Baltimore Pike & Taneytown Road, Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, PA 17325, Gettysburg, PA · Get directions