July 3, 1913
On the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, thousands of Civil War veterans descended on the town. A recreation of Pickett’s Charge was reenacted by 120 (Confederate) veterans of Pickett’s Division and 180 (Union) veterans from the Philadelphia Brigade. The Confederate veterans charged over 100 feet of ground to the wall and shook hands with the Union veterans. The New York Herald wrote: “Today fifty thousand veterans of the great War are moving on to take peaceful possession of the field where the ardor of youth they strove in such deadly conflict. No better evidence of healing of the nation’s wounds could be offered than the spectacle of men of the Grand Army and of the Confederacy striking hands on the spot where they made history.”
July 3 in Peace & Justice History
