John Heiser, Historian

In the summer of 1913, Pennsylvania invited thousands of Union and Confederate veterans to come to Gettysburg to observe and celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, what many considered to be the "High Water Mark the Rebellion". The response from veterans of the Blue and Gray was overwhelming - over 54,000 old soldiers journeyed to a battlefield skillfully transformed by a government commission into a memorial park, where the armies of both North and South would forever be memorialized. Critics scoffed that old enemies could never get along, the divisions that caused the war in 1861 having not been forgotten. But America was changing at home and abroad and those who chose to ignore this commemoration were surprised at its outcome. Was this "Great Reunion" finally the signal of national reunification so many had hoped for fifty years after the final shot had been fired?

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