Save 11 Acres – Nearly Untouched – at Gettysburg!

An 11-acre battlefield parcel right there by Seminary Ridge, and mere steps from sites like Reynolds Woods, Willoughby’s Run, Lee’s Headquarters, and the Seminary. This land is right in the heart of the action!

The Opportunity

Saving these 11 acres now will add another piece to the contiguous area that we’ve preserved together and can one day expand the borders of National Park Service land at Gettysburg.

It will also protect the land from growing development threats. Gettysburg was a quiet and mostly rural area at the time of the battle and even a century later when President Eisenhower retired here in the 1960s, but it’s not so quiet and rural now. Land prices are rising in Gettysburg, and commercial and residential development continues to encroach on the remaining unprotected battlefield land.

This remarkable tract currently has NO protection of any kind. Anyone could snatch it up now and build several single-family homes. But that won’t happen if we preserve it first. For the last few months, we’ve been working furiously to reach a deal with the family that has owned the land for generations. At last, they’ve signed!

All that’s left is raising the money. The total cost is $515,000, but we hope to receive government and nonprofit grants totaling $200,000, which means we have $315,000 to go. But we must raise it quickly.

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The History

Gettysburg was not only the costliest battle of the Civil War but also the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.

If the battle had ended as the sun set on July 1, 1863, the first day alone would now be remembered as the 12th bloodiest battle of the Civil War. That’s how intense the first day of fighting was.

The violent combat at McPherson’s Ridge, Oak Hill, Oak Ridge, Seminary Ridge, and Barlow’s Knoll produced more than 16,000 Americans killed, wounded, captured, or missing.

First-hand battle accounts describe the carnage in gruesome detail and record the staggering and heartbreaking scale of human loss. The 13th North Carolina alone lost 83% of its men at Gettysburg.

One captain from the 2nd Wisconsin who fought with the Iron Brigade at Seminary Ridge later wrote:

“As if every lanyard was pulled by the same hand, this line of artillery opened, and Seminary Ridge blazed with a solid sheet of flame, and the missiles of death that swept its western slopes no human beings could endure.”

To stand on this property during the heat of battle on the afternoon of July 1, 1863, you would have been surrounded by gunfire, while your eyes would have been stung from smoke.

Situated between the critical battle arteries of the Chambersburg Pike and Fairfield Road, and bordering land preserved by the National Park Service and by the American Battlefield Trust, this tract hosted Union and Confederate movements and fighting on the battle’s first day, was used as a reserve position on the next day, and later served as or was right next to a temporary cemetery for Confederate soldiers killed nearby.

The initial deployments of the Union cavalry and horse artillery moved on part of the tract, while the Iron Brigade crossed it en route to its famous fights near Willoughby’s Run and the Railroad Cut. Commander Chapman Biddle’s brigades of Pennsylvania troops crossed over it again and again as they tried to move out of the path of incoming projectiles, some of which doubtless fell upon the tract.

Biddle’s brigade also retreated through this swale, followed by Generals James Pettigrew’s and James H. Lane’s North Carolina troops, and by Colonel Abner M. Perrin’s men from South Carolina.

The Land at Gettysburg Today

While preservation campaigns (including our efforts!) eventually took hold in one direction, and commercial development steamrolled on in another, this 11-acre plot stayed nearly the same for more than a century and a half. It’s in nearly pristine condition!

It’s a two-minute walk from the Lutheran Seminary. It’s a three-minute walk to the famed spot where the Three Confederate Prisoners were photographed in one of the most iconic images of the Civil War.

It’s about 1,200 feet from the monument that marks the place where Gen. John F. Reynolds lost his life, and barely 1,600 feet from Lee’s Headquarters. That’s how central this tract is to the battlefield and the first day of fighting!

Please give what you can today to help save this hallowed land.

Donate now