Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-03-12
dbe Ea,,faster 1nteIIigcufer.
LANCASTER. MARCH L., 1854
A Well.Marked Battlefield.

The famous battlefield OF GettysDurg,
where the decisive conflict of the late war
was waged, the only battlefield of the
North and on the soil of free state, will
Ia the time to come be the spot of greatest
historic interest in this country. Our last
war, of which there will probably never
be another its like, must transcend all other
military events of the country in interest
from the sad circumstance that it was a
civil strife. As time and reconciliation
assuage its asperit:es, and when the swords
that flashed on either side are crossed above
the doorways of peaceful households, whose
a common pride will follow the achieve
ments of Northern and Southern soldiers
and their bravery and prowess will have
common praise.
The number of troops engaged, the wide
area Of country fought over, the proper
tion of volunteer soldiers under arms, the
absorbing political questions involved, and
the enormous amount of historical nara
tive and controversy already evoked from
active participants, have already made our
late war alike memorable in the annals of
military science and of political history.
The climax was reached at Gettysburg.
That was unquestionably the great bat
tie of the war; and the study and contem-
plation of it, as such, will grow in interest
as we recede further from the time of it.
The field itself was adapted for the
marshalling and movements of great
armies. Nature seemed to singularly
furnish it for such an event. There are
plains for charges, ridges for battle lines,
hill tops for redoubts and rocky fortresses
for ambush and resistance. Cemetery and
Seminary ridges, the Round Tops and
Culp's hill, Devils Den, the wheat field on
which Pickett's splendid host melted away
to death, the peach orchard and the town,
the woods and copses and the spider-web
Of roads radiating out from the quiet little
borough that shook with wars echoes, are
points Of the battlefield from which the in
quiring generations will survey the scene
and study history and war. 1t was fortunate
that the government early procured the
site of national cemetery and set grand
monument there, made yet more memor-
able by the matchless Grafton of Lincoln
at its dedication. Other portions of the
ground are owned and controlled by a bat
tle-field association that cherishes it with
watchful and jealous care, and some i'm
pOrtant points are in private control that
keeps them for public advantage. New
railroad facilities and corporate liberality
and enterprise have contributed, too, to
make the Gettysburg battlefield accessi-
BILE and to enhance the interest of visit.
But the most notable and valuable arti-
fetal features of this battlefield have been
established in the system of marking the
places where the regiments engaged stood,
where the leading events of the three days
fight occurred, where this or that man fell,
and where one charge advanced and
another was repelled. Most of these have
been fixed by the concurrent testimony of
eye-witnesses; and the reconstruction of the |
broken Union has had no more impressive
incident than the visit of Federal and Con- |
federate soldiers, arm in arm, over Get.
tysburg, showing where squadrons were
set and how fields were won. Here gran
ite boulder, with graved inscription; there
tombstone now tablet, and again
a beautiful piece of sculpture; rocks piled
into battlements; rusty cannon dragged
up the steep hillsides and trees blazed with
imperishable memorials of the deeds done
in their shade, tell the story of the great
struggle between North and South. Much
of the work has been done by individuals,
some by associations and good deal by
states. On all of these memorials Massa-
chusetts has erected twenty-eight; Penn
sylvania twenty-seven New Jersey,
Indiana, Delaware, New Hampshire and
Rhode Island each have one. Until now
New York has had but one regimental
monument and that was erected at private
expense, but a bill has been introduced at
Albany to appropriate $500 to each of the
ten New York regiments which fought so
well IN Major Gen. Sickles' Third army
corps, and it will no doubt pass.
pennsylvania, which must ever be the
custodian OF this 6sld, and on whose soil
the conflict was waged and won for the
Union, should not fail to do her part.
Now OF al times, 1t seems fitting that some
great memorial Of her two sons distin-
guished on that field, Hancock and Meade
should be undertaken. Reynolds is al.
ready there in bronze; and the part that
our other two great soldiers took can
never be effaced while rocks stay and hills
stand. But if their fame is to be marked
BY bronze or granite, where can their me-
MORALS be more itly placed than at Get
fysburg 7