Hub of History

Hub of History. Gettysburg's Train Station. The building before you, Gettysburg's iconic train station, played a key role in both misery and grandeur associated with the Battle of Gettysburg., On June 30, 1863, even before vicious fighting began, Union cavalry Gen. John Buford established a hospital in the station for sick troopers. By the next day, July 1, Iron Brigade surgeon Jacob Ebersole was also serving here. He remembered Confederate troops "sweeping past the hospital and completely filling the streets." Ebersole worked here two weeks while the transportation hub also facilitated the movement of much-needed relief supplies and the removal of Federal dead and wounded., On November 18, 1863, an evening train chugged into this building bringing President Abraham Lincoln and his entourage. The group walked one block south to attorney David Wills' home., At the Wills House, President Lincoln put the finishing touches on his Gettysburg address, which delivered the next morning in the Gettysburg National Cemetery (Soldiers' National Cemetery). It's moving to think that some of the men "who here gave their lives," as the president put it in his famous speech, passed thorough the station on their final journey home. Lincoln departed from the station on November 19 to return to Washington.