The Gettysburg National Military Park is in the small town of Gettysburg in the eastern state of Pennsylvania .
Much of the area around Gettysburg still looks like it did in the 1860s , during the American Civil War . The town is in the middle of good farmland . Roads pass through Gettysburg that lead to Baltimore , Washington , D .C ., and other eastern cities . It is hard to believe that two huge armies fought there .
One fighting force was the United States Army of the Potomac , commanded by General George Meade . The other was the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E . Lee . Lee’s troops had moved north into Pennsylvania from Virginia .
Lee believed that a Southern win of a battle on Northern land would force a negotiated settlement of the Civil War and mean independence for the Confederate States .
The battle of Gettysburg began on July 1 , 1863 . About 170 ,000 soldiers fought for three days . When it ended on July 3 , more than 50 ,000 soldiers were dead , wounded or missing .
Lee’s army lost the battle .
Many visitors start their visit to Gettysburg at the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War . The museum has a large collection of Civil War objects . The museum has more than 1 million artifacts , from soldiers ’ private notebooks and clothing to maps of the battlefield .
The museum also houses the Gettysburg cyclorama painting . This kind of artwork completely surrounds the people looking at it .
The painting shows the artist’s vision of the final major attack of the battle on July 3 , 1863 . Over time , it has come to be called Pickett's Charge . George Pickett was one of several Confederate commanders ordered to make the charge .
The Confederate soldiers reached a point close to the northern lines and headquarters . Today , the point is called the “High Water Mark .” Northern forces then turned the Confederates back .
The charge failed . Southern forces would never again reach so far north . Soon after the battle , people began to visit Gettysburg to try to understand what happened there . One of those visitors , on November 19 , 1863 , was President Abraham Lincoln . He was invited to help dedicate a burial ground for Union soldiers killed in the battle .
Lincoln spoke for just two minutes . But his speech , known as “The Gettysburg Address ,” is one of the most famous pieces of American oratory .
I'm Mario Ritter , Jr .
Nancy Steinbach and Ashley Thompson with additional material from the National Park Service for VOA Learning English . Mario Ritter , Jr . adapted it for the VOA Learning English podcast .
museum – n. a building in which interesting and valuable things (as works of art or historical or scientific objects) are collected and shown to the public artifact – n. a usually simple object (as a tool or ornament) showing human work and representing a culture or a stage in the development of a culture vision – n. a thought, idea, or object formed by the imagination dedicate – v. to set apart for some purpose and especially a sacred or serious purpose oratory – n. the job of making speeches in public
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