Chris Gwinn ’06, National Park Service Ranger at the Gettysburg National Military Park, speaks to a group of visitors about the history of Pennsylvania Hall. Pennsylvania Hall is one stop on the NPS’s three-stop tour, “Yankees, Rebels and Civilians: The First Day of Battle Ends.”
This week marks the Sesquicentennial anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, and there are a multitude of events for tourists, reenactors, and community members alike. Here at Gettysburg College, we have partnered with local organizations to host several of these activities. Today, July 1st, there were a number of special exhibits in Musselman Library; throughout the week, the Majestic Cinema will be showing a free 15-minute film, Addressing Gettysburg, which explains the enduring meaning of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address; and on July 4th, Professor Alex Kahn and Emeritus Professor Norm Nunamaker will be directing a Gala Orchestra Concert in front of Pennsylvania Hall that features some of our own students. In fact, several of our faculty are actively involved in sharing the Gettysburg experience with the public. Sunderman Conservatory Professor Avner Dorman’s “Letters from Gettysburg” is being broadcast on WWFM on July 4th; Civil War expert Professors Allen Guelzo and Pete Carmichael have published op-eds about the battle in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times (and again), and USA Today; Professor Allen Guelzo and Brian Jordan ’09 will be signing their recently published books; and John Rudy ’07 has led a number of walking tours from today’s campus welcome center.
But amidst the excitement surrounding this week’s events, I sit at my desk today contemplating the horrific events that swept through our campus and town exactly 150 years ago. On the morning of July 1, 1863, classes were in session right here in Pennsylvania Hall. The College’s President, Henry Louis Baugher, was teaching his Greek class when Union soldiers rushed into the building and ascended into the cupola to view the surrounding fields. I can imagine President Baugher dismissing the College’s remaining students, some of whom rushed to seek shelter in town, and some of whom ventured off campus to observe the battle. President Baugher walked home—to a building that now stands as the Norris-Wachob Alumni House—and found that his family had begun to take in wounded Union soldiers who were staggering onto campus following the morning’s struggle. Since Henry and his wife, Clara, had lost their own son in the Battle of Shiloh just one year prior, I imagine caring for these wounded men might have brought them some solace.
I’ve tried to envision what it looked like later that day, when Union forces retreated through our campus with Confederate soldiers close behind, and how Pennsylvania Hall, the College’s primary residential and classroom building at that time, must have looked when the Confederate Army captured it for use as a hospital just hours later.
I can’t fathom the sight of the building after three days of battle—with nearly 700 wounded, dead, and dying soldiers filling its classrooms and dorm rooms, and overflowing onto its surrounding green. Or how the students must have felt when they returned to campus to find their belongings gone, blood running across the floors, and their books being used as pillows by the wounded soldiers who lay in their beds and on the floors of their rooms. It’s hard to imagine the pain and fear that these students must have witnessed.
As president of Gettysburg College, I also think about a semester that never concluded, but a class of seniors who were able to graduate on time. I think of a campus that was able to open that following September—a tremendous testament to the community’s resilience. And of course, as both president and as an alumna, I take pride in the fact that later that fall, one of my fellow alumni, David Wills, invited President Abraham Lincoln for the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. That November, our College closed once again; this time, our students did not flee, but walked together to the south side of town to hear those immortal words: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…”
Out of the tragedy of Gettysburg, I reflect on these words of inspiration—words that challenge us, as Gettysburgians, to continue the pursuit of equality for all—words that speak to us today.
