First-Year Walk Video (full version)

When national tensions finally erupted into Civil War, the College and Pennsylvania Hall stood in its midst. Elements of two great armies swept through campus on July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the war's decisive conflict. Pennsylvania Hall became a hospital for hundreds of soldiers from both North and South.

Only months later - on Nov. 19, 1863 - students, faculty, and townspeople marched to the National Cemetery to hear President Abraham Lincoln hallow that earth with his immortal Gettysburg Address. The College remembers the event annually, when first-year students recreate the procession to the Cemetery to hear an honored guest read the Address.

In 2007 Scott Hancock, Professor of History and Africana Studies at Gettysburg College, read the Gettysburg Address and presented the class with its flag. Other speakers included Gettysburg Mayor William Troxell and President Will.