70 Fun Facts About Gettysburg

After Gettysburg, Lee offered his resignation to whom?

Jefferson Davis. The Confederate president refused to let him go, and Lee stayed in command of his army for the rest of the war.

Gettysburg sits just north of Pennsylvania's border with which state?

Maryland. With the state line so close, the armies arrived back to front: Confederates reached Gettysburg from the north and west, while Union troops came up from the south.

Which phrase opens Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

Four score and seven years ago. That is 87 years, which reaches back to 1776: Lincoln dated the nation's birth to the Declaration, not to the Constitution.

Which general took command of the Union army only days before it fought at Gettysburg?

George Meade. Woken in his tent before dawn by a messenger from Washington, he assumed he was being arrested, not handed the army.

Gettysburg was the Civil War's bloodiest battle, but which battle saw the war's bloodiest single day?

Antietam. Its roughly 23,000 casualties in one September day in 1862 ended Lee's first invasion of the North and gave Lincoln the opening to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Which Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi surrendered to Grant the day after the fighting at Gettysburg ended?

Vicksburg. It gave up after a 47-day siege, and once Port Hudson fell days later the Union held the whole Mississippi and the Confederacy was cut in two.

Which Union cavalry general held the ridges northwest of Gettysburg on July 1 until infantry arrived?

John Buford. Heavily outnumbered, he had his cavalrymen fight on foot to slow the Confederate advance; that December he was promoted to major general on his deathbed.

Which Union corps commander was shot and killed early on July 1 while directing troops near Herbst Woods?

John F. Reynolds. A month earlier he had reportedly told Lincoln he would lead the whole army only if Washington gave him a free hand, and the command went to a junior general instead.

Lee told Ewell on July 1 to take Cemetery Hill, adding which famous phrase?

"If practicable" left the call to Ewell, newly promoted to replace Stonewall Jackson; he held back, and Union troops used the time to fortify the hill.

The Union defensive line at Gettysburg on July 2 is popularly described as resembling what?

A fishhook. Its curve let Union commanders rush reinforcements across the short inside of the line, while Lee's troops had to move the long way around the outside.

Which Union corps commander pushed III Corps to the Peach Orchard against orders and lost a leg?

The former congressman kept the shattered leg bone and donated it to the Army Medical Museum, reportedly visiting it on the anniversary for years afterward.

Which Union engineer rushed troops onto Little Round Top minutes before Hood's Confederates arrived?

Gouverneur K. Warren. He found the hill held only by a few signalmen and diverted troops to it on his own authority; his bronze statue stands on the boulder where he is said to have spotted the attack.

Which regiment on the extreme left of the Union line at Little Round Top finished with a bayonet charge?

20th Maine. Out of ammunition after repeated assaults, the regiment, led by a Bowdoin College professor, fixed bayonets and swept downhill, scattering its attackers.

Colonel William Oates's 15th infantry regiment, which repeatedly assaulted Little Round Top, came from which state?

Alabama. Oates lost his younger brother John in the assaults, argued for years afterwards that taking the hill could have turned the battle, and was later elected the state's governor.

Which Gettysburg hill did 62-year-old George Greene's brigade hold from behind breastworks on the night of July 2?

Culp's Hill. Greene, a civil engineer before the war, had his men dig in though his superiors saw little need, and the works helped his lone brigade hold the Union right flank.

Which field at Gettysburg changed hands again and again on July 2 in fighting that cost about 6,000 casualties?

The Wheatfield. Both sides fed in brigade after brigade, so the small farm field was taken and retaken all afternoon; of more than 20,000 men who fought there, nearly a third became casualties.

Which regiment made a near-suicidal bayonet charge on July 2 to plug a gap on Cemetery Ridge?

1st Minnesota. Its corps commander needed a few minutes for reserves to come up and threw in the only formed troops at hand; 215 of the 262 men who charged became casualties.

From which landmark below Little Round Top did Confederate sharpshooters pick off Union officers on the summit?

Devil's Den. Marksmen hidden among its boulders reportedly killed General Stephen Weed on the summit, along with the artillery officer Charles Hazlett.

Pickett's own division, only part of the force in Pickett's Charge, was made up entirely of troops from which state?

Virginia. Every one of Pickett's brigades was Virginian, but his was only one of several divisions in the attack that bears his name, and he was never its overall commander.

Which Confederate corps commander was put in overall charge of Pickett's Charge despite believing it would fail?

James Longstreet. He objected strongly to the plan and was overruled, yet after the war many fellow Southerners made him the scapegoat for the defeat.

Roughly how much open ground did the men of Pickett's Charge have to cross to reach the Union line?

About 1 mile. The Confederates marched it in line while artillery tore gaps in their ranks, and the fences in their path held them up under fire.

Which Confederate brigadier led his men over the wall at Pickett's Charge with his hat on the tip of his sword?

Lewis Armistead. Shot down just after crossing the wall, he asked that his personal effects go to a close friend from before the war: the Union general whose troops had stopped him.

What name is given to the stretch of stone wall on Cemetery Ridge where Pickett's Charge briefly broke through?

The Angle. It is named for the sharp jog the wall makes there; the few Confederates who got across it were quickly killed, wounded or captured.

Union troops facing Pickett's Charge shouted the name of which battle, where their own charges had been cut down?

Fredericksburg. Seven months earlier Union troops had been shot down charging Confederates sheltered behind a stone wall; at Gettysburg the wall was theirs.

How did Pickett allegedly answer Lee's order to rally his men after the charge?

"General, I have no division." It was close to the truth: about half of his men were casualties, and every one of his brigade commanders had been shot down.

Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, killed at Gettysburg, received which award in 2014?

Medal of Honor. It came 151 years after his death: badly wounded, he had refused to leave his guns and fought on, propped up by his sergeant, until a bullet killed him.

Which Confederate cavalry commander was out of touch with Lee until the second day of Gettysburg?

J.E.B. Stuart. His horsemen were meant to be the army's eyes and ears, but his long ride away from it left Lee with almost no intelligence in enemy territory.

Which 23-year-old Union brigadier, a general for under a week, led Michigan cavalry charges east of Gettysburg on July 3?

George Armstrong Custer. A staff captain until days before the battle, he led his Michigan brigade's charges in person; thirteen years later his command was wiped out at the Little Bighorn.

Historians doubt the popular tale that the Battle of Gettysburg began with Confederates hunting for what supply?

Shoes. The story goes back to a postwar claim by Confederate general Henry Heth, but the town had no shoe factory or warehouse; the ten roads that met there are what drew the armies.

Which Union unit's black Hardee hats told Confederates in Herbst Woods on July 1 that they faced veterans?

The Iron Brigade. The Confederates had expected only militia or cavalry; instead the Midwesterners outflanked them in the woods and captured their commander, General James Archer.

The 11th Pennsylvania's monument at Gettysburg includes a bronze statue of Sallie, the regiment's mascot, who was what animal?

A dog. Sallie went missing in the first day's retreat and was found after the battle, weak but alive, keeping watch over the regiment's dead and wounded.

What was Jennie Wade, the only civilian killed in the fighting at Gettysburg, doing when a stray bullet hit her?

Kneading dough for bread. The bullet passed through two doors to reach her in her sister's kitchen, and her mother baked the dough into 15 loaves for Union soldiers the next day.

John Burns, the 69-year-old civilian who fought at Gettysburg on July 1, is said to have served in which earlier war?

The War of 1812. Turned away by the army as too old, Burns took his musket to the fighting anyway, was wounded in the arm, leg and chest, and talked his captors into treating him as a bystander.

What had to be dragged into great piles and burned around Gettysburg in the days after the battle?

Horse carcasses. While the dead horses and mules burned, homes and public buildings filled with wounded men, and the disease that followed made the town a risky place to live.

What trapped Lee's retreating army north of the Potomac at Williamsport for a week after Gettysburg?

A flooded river. Days of rain had swollen the Potomac, so Lee dug in with his back to the water and waited a week for it to fall before slipping his army across at night.

The miles-long wagon train that John Imboden escorted away from Gettysburg after the battle carried thousands of what?

Wounded Confederates. Only those judged fit to travel went with the wagons; thousands of the most badly hurt were left behind to be treated in Union field hospitals.

Which general was sent ahead by the army's commander on July 1 to take charge of the fighting at Gettysburg?

Winfield Scott Hancock. He took charge on Cemetery Hill that afternoon; two days later he was shot in the thigh repelling Pickett's Charge, a wound that forced him out of field command in 1864.

Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address exactly one week before which holiday in 1863?

Thanksgiving. In October Lincoln had proclaimed the last Thursday of November a national day of thanks, so the holiday fell seven days after he spoke at Gettysburg.

Who delivered the two-hour main oration at Gettysburg before Lincoln rose to give his address?

Edward Everett. The next day he wrote to Lincoln wishing he had come as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as the president had in two minutes.

Roughly how long is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

About 270 words. Lincoln was not the main speaker: his invitation asked only for "a few appropriate remarks" to set the ground apart once the day's oration was over.

Lincoln hand-copied the Gettysburg Address in 1864 to raise money for whom?

Soldiers. One copy was useless for printing because Lincoln had written on both sides of the sheet, so he made another, the only one he ever signed and dated.

Where is the only one of Lincoln's five handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address that he signed and dated?

The White House. Oscar Cintas, a former Cuban ambassador to Washington, bought the copy at auction in 1949 and willed it to the American people; it went to the Lincoln Room.

The Chicago Times dismissed the Gettysburg Address as "silly, flat and" what?

Dishwatery. Opinion split along party lines: while papers hostile to Lincoln sneered, the Springfield Republican in Massachusetts called his little speech "a perfect gem".

Lincoln was diagnosed with a mild case of which disease soon after the Gettysburg Address?

Smallpox. He was already weak and dizzy as he spoke; his doctors called it a mild case, but a later medical review argued it was the full disease, played down to reassure the public.

A durable myth says Lincoln dashed off the Gettysburg Address on the train, writing it on what?

The back of an envelope. In fact he began the draft in Washington on Executive Mansion letterhead and finished it in Gettysburg, and every surviving copy is on ordinary letter paper.

Which Gettysburg attorney, organizer of the national cemetery, hosted Lincoln the night before the Address?

David Wills. Crowds gathered outside his house that evening calling for a speech, and Lincoln is thought to have finished writing out his address in a second-floor bedroom there.

The first Southern state monument at Gettysburg, unveiled in 1917, shows Robert E. Lee mounted on which famous horse?

Traveller. One of Lee's nieces unveiled the bronze, which shows the general gazing across the fields of Pickett's Charge toward the Union line.

The Union graves in Gettysburg National Cemetery are arranged in semicircles and grouped by what?

Home state. Designer William Saunders fanned the plots out around a central monument to give each state and each grave equal treatment, and recalled that Lincoln, shown the plan in advance, was much pleased.

Gettysburg is the county seat of which county, created in 1800?

Adams. The county was carved out of a neighbouring one in 1800 and named for John Adams, who was president at the time.

Which Soviet leader was among the world leaders President Eisenhower welcomed to his Gettysburg farm?

Nikita Khrushchev. He came over from the Camp David talks in 1959; Eisenhower liked to break the ice with visiting leaders there over an informal chat and a meeting with his grandchildren.

Eisenhower's farm beside the Gettysburg battlefield was also a working operation with a show herd of what?

Black Angus cattle. As president Eisenhower spent his weekends at the farm and brought visiting world leaders out to it, and in 1961 he retired there.

Camp Colt, which a young Dwight Eisenhower commanded at Gettysburg in 1918, trained men for what new weapon?

Tanks. The camp spread across the fields of Pickett's Charge, and in 1950 the Eisenhowers came back and bought a farm beside the battlefield, the first home they ever owned.

Which abolitionist congressman, once a Gettysburg lawyer, provided the land for Gettysburg College's Pennsylvania Hall?

Thaddeus Stevens. The college itself was founded in 1832 by the Lutheran theologian Samuel Schmucker; Stevens, who practised law in the town for years, supplied the ground for its first permanent home.

What is the giant painting of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg's visitor center called?

The Cyclorama. The 377-foot canvas is the second that Paul Philippoteaux painted: the first was such a success in Chicago that he was hired to paint this one, which opened in Boston in 1884.

Which department ran Gettysburg's battlefield park until 1933?

War Department. It took charge in 1895 under a bill sponsored in Congress by a one-legged veteran of the battle, and the park later passed to the National Park Service.

The bronze Nike crowning Gettysburg's Pennsylvania memorial, the largest state monument there, was cast from what?

Melted-down cannons. The memorial was dedicated in 1910 without its bronze portrait statues, which were only added in 1913, in time for the battle's fiftieth anniversary.

Which president dedicated Gettysburg's Eternal Light Peace Memorial in front of the battle's last aged veterans?

Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he finished speaking, a Union veteran and a Confederate veteran, both in their nineties, unveiled the monument together.

Which scientist spoke at the Eternal Light Peace Memorial's 1988 rededication, comparing Gettysburg to the nuclear age?

Carl Sagan warned the crowd that in under a century the deadliest weapon had grown a billion times more powerful, while people had not grown a billion times wiser.

From which ridge, site of Lee's headquarters, did the Confederates face the Union line on Cemetery Ridge?

Seminary Ridge takes its name from the Lutheran seminary that stands on it. Lee's headquarters there, a widow's stone house, was later ringed by a motel until preservationists restored the site in 2016.

The 1993 film Gettysburg was adapted from which Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 novel?

The Killer Angels won the 1975 Pulitzer, yet director Ronald Maxwell, who bought the film rights in 1981, spent more than a decade pitching it before cameras rolled in 1992.

Michael Shaara's Gettysburg novel was Joss Whedon's inspiration for which TV series?

Firefly began when Joss Whedon read the novel and pictured soldiers from a war's losing side drifting out to the frontier, which became his space Western about ex-rebels.

Which filmmaker has a cameo as a Union general's aide in the 1993 film Gettysburg?

Ken Burns did more than appear: in 1991 he helped director Ronald Maxwell win the financing that got the film made, months after his own series The Civil War aired on PBS.

Who played Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in the 1993 film Gettysburg?

Jeff Daniels followed the solemn colonel a year later with Dumb and Dumber, a noted departure for a dramatic actor, then returned as Chamberlain in the film's 2003 prequel.

Which media mogul, whose company made the 1993 film Gettysburg, has a cameo in it as a Confederate soldier?

Ted Turner appears briefly, falling in Pickett's Charge. He had backed the project as a miniseries for his TNT network, then judged the footage too big for the small screen and opened it in cinemas.

Which actor played General Lee in the 1993 film Gettysburg?

Martin Sheen got the part only after Robert Duvall, Albert Finney and George C. Scott had all passed on it; Duvall finally played Lee in the 2003 prequel.

Which Union general at Gettysburg was later credited, wrongly, with inventing baseball?

Abner Doubleday never made the claim himself. A commission named him baseball's inventor years after his death, which is why the Hall of Fame stands in Cooperstown.

Where, at the eastern foot of South Mountain, did Lee order his scattered army to gather before Gettysburg?

Cashtown was the rallying point, but a brigade sent on from it toward Gettysburg on June 30 met Union cavalry and pulled back, and a return in force the next morning began the battle.

Which town east of Gettysburg, occupied by Jubal Early's Confederates, paid a cash ransom to be spared?

York handed Jubal Early under a third of the $100,000 he demanded and was still spared. A year later his cavalry burned Chambersburg when its ransom went unpaid.

Which landmark on Cemetery Ridge is traditionally called the target of Pickett's Charge?

The Copse of Trees is named as the landmark of the assault on the 1892 High Water Mark monument beside it, though some park historians argue Lee was really aiming at a bigger grove farther north.

Which city's outskirts had Lee's lead troops reached when he recalled them toward Gettysburg?

Harrisburg was the goal: Confederate cavalry skirmished with the militia guarding the state capital, but Lee, learning the Union army was close behind, pulled his scattered corps back.