Gettysburg National Military Park Quarter
Coin Description
The Story
The subject of the sixth quarter in the America the Beautiful Quarters® Program is Gettysburg National Military Park. More soldiers died at Gettysburg than in most of the other battles of the war.
Many historians believe that the Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the American Civil War. In any case, the Union’s victory at Gettysburg in July of 1863 ended General Robert E. Lee’s second and most ambitious invasion of the North.
It was during a ceremony dedicating the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg that President Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg address in 1863.
In 1864, the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, a group of concerned citizens, set out to preserve the battlefield as a memorial. The battlefield was transferred to the federal government as Gettysburg National Military Park in 1895.