First-Year Walk

First-Year Walk Highlights

CWI Director Peter Carmichael delivers the Gettysburg Address

The First-Year Walk looks back to Nov. 19, 1863, when Gettysburg College students, townspeople and Abraham Lincoln processed along Baltimore Street to the National Cemetery site, where the president dedicated the Soldiers' National Cemetery and delivered his Gettysburg Address. Students and facilitators met at Christ Chapel at 6:45 p.m. The group traveled east on Stevens Street, turned right onto Carlisle Street, continued around the square, and then down Baltimore Street. The walk culminated at the cemetery, where Peter Carmichael, Director of the Civil War Institute, read the Gettysburg Address. Other speakers included Gettysburg Mayor William Troxell and Gettysburg College President Janet Morgan Riggs. While en route to the cemetery, orientation group leaders and volunteer facilitators familiarized first-year students with downtown businesses and historic landmarks, such as Thaddeus Stevens Hall, named after the abolitionist congressman and College co-founder who authored the 14th Amendment; the Eisenhower House, where the retired president and College trustee wrote his memoirs; the Wills House, the restored home of David Wills, who was an 1851 Gettysburg College graduate and the local attorney who invited Lincoln to deliver some remarks and Lincoln stayed at his home the night before his Address; and the Jennie Wade House, where the battle's only civilian casualty was felled by a stray bullet.