Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-25
GETTYsBURG's LAST BATTLE.
The Contest Over the Location Of the
Memorial Monuments.

From the Grand Army Record.
The original battle of Gettysburg was fought
July 1, 2, and 8, 1864, and it has been quite gen.
orally believed that no other action was likely
| to take place in that now famous town, except
such bloodless contests which ensue when old
veterans make pilgrimage there to fight over
this same renowned engagement. But now a
new battle is about to be fought on this identi-
cal field. Skirmishers have been driven in and
the fight seems imminent. The casus belli, as
legal men would say, seems to be this: Several
regiments have erected monuments on that
field under the direction Of the association hav-
ing the field in control Among these are the
| fifteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth Massa-
chusetts regiments, which had the dis
tinguished honor of seizing treason by the
throat, and holding it till it grew black in the
face, at the famous stone wall in the crest.
There these and other regiments have erected
monum ents; and, as is well known, the whole
of that great field is becoming thickly studded
with unique and appropriate memorials, which
commemorate the valor of the Union soldiers
on this ground. Each of these stones has been
located in the most pains-taking way by the
veterans, aided by Col. Batchelder. the his
torian of the field, and all of them determine,
as accurately as it viii ever be determined
where each regiment and battery represented
stood at certain crises in that three days
struggle.
Now as we understand it, comes along the
association, who were party to the location
of the monuments, and declare that some of
them must be moved nearer to a certain ave-
nue., or 20 make way for an avenue projected.
or for some other reason which has appeared
at this eleventh hour, and which naturally
seems to the veterans interested insufficient
and, ON the whole, outrageous, and q lively
sort of a ruction is the consequence. As the
matter lies, in our minds the veterans are JUS
tilted in making their earnest and emphatic
protests against the proposed removals. OF
course 1t would be in some respects eminently
satisfactory if all these monuments could be
made to right-dress along spacious and WE'LL
graded avenue, through which tourists might
drive and read every inscription without once
alighting from their carriages But, as we I'M
derstand it, those monuments were erected in
the interests of history and not for the conven-
fence of tourists
One OF these landscape gardeners once took
charge OF Kings Chapel burial ground in Bos-
ton. and thought it desirable that circular walk
should be laid out through it. His plan recog-
nized no such slight obstacles as tombstones,
which were taken up in large numbers and set
on either side of the path, where they may now
be seen, many of them far removed from their
original locations, that the inscription
Here lies" which they bear, has taken on
new significance. No monkeying of this sort
should be tolerated with the Gettysburg me-
MORALS, and public sentiment will sustain the
veterans in making vigorous protest against
contemplated removals for mere aesthetic
reasons.