War, Memory, and the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion

Union and Confederate veterans meet at Gettysburg on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle.

This reunion drew over fifty-five thousand official attendees who descended upon a town of four thousand during the summer of 1913 with the promise of little more than a cot and two blankets, military fare, and the presence of countless adversaries from a horrific war. Most were revisiting a time and place in their personal history that involved acute physical and emotional trauma.

Contrary to popular...