Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum

Abstract

The town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, annually commemorates two historic moments in 1863—the clash of two mighty armies for three days in July that left over 7,800 dead and 38,423 wounded, missing, or captured; and President Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary dedicatory address four months later, on November 19, immortalizing the sacrifices of Union soldiers. There are few places in town a visitor can go without bumping into some reminder of the Civil War battle and its aftermath, with examples ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Gettysburg National Military Park and its new museum and visitor center (all run by the National Park Service) are prime examples of the former and attract more than 1.2 million visitors annually. In July 2013 the Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum joined its much larger neighbor at the top of the list of the town's most credible and compelling historical attractions. The museum uses the original Lutheran Theological Seminary building, built in 1832, to tell three interlinked stories: the pivotal first day of the Battle of Gettysburg on Seminary Ridge; the care of the wounded and the human suffering within the seminary building during its use as a Civil War field hospital; and the moral, civic, and spiritual debates that punctuated the Civil War era. While the first two stories can be found elsewhere, they resonate with special power when told at the site where so many of the events depicted took place. The third story—the moral, spiritual, and religious issues that shaped the Civil War era—is rarely tackled in history museums and is particularly suited to the building that housed the classrooms, library, chapel, housing, food service, and other functions of the Lutheran Theological Seminary.