"History Kid's" Reading Adventure

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg Na......More

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

Join us inside the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center Theater. Ask at the National Park Service Information Desk in the main lobby for more details.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: “‘The Ground Around the Seminary’: President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Battlefield Excursion”

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Historian Codie Eash, Seminary Ridge Museum Hours before Abraham Lincoln delivered his iconic Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, at least three eyewitnesses recalled that the president toured the battlefield, including a personal guard, a foreign ambassador, and United States Secretary of State William Seward. According to the latter, the party “visited the ground around the Seminary, and Mr. Lincoln joined in.” Join Codie Eash, Director of Education and Interpretation at Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center, as he explores the Lutheran Seminary in the aftermath of battle, examines the role of Seminary personnel in the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery, and uses historical evidence to investigate whether Lincoln made his apparent battlefield visit.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: A Fragment Spared by Time – 1938 Reunion

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Richard Goedkoop, Licensed Battlefield Guide The 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg marked the largest gathering in the town’s history. This illustrated program explores the origins and major events of the reunion, culminating in the dedication of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. Highlights include President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s commemorative address, as well as a reflection on the reunion’s impact and enduring memory.

"History Kid's" Reading Adventure

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg Na......More

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

Join us inside the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center Theater. Ask at the National Park Service Information Desk in the main lobby for more details.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: Something Abides- Controversies on the Early Gettysburg Battlefield

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Ranger Erica Uszak, Historic Preservation Training Center, NPS Gettysburg was one of the first Civil War battlefields to be established as a national military park—a result of Civil War veterans who feared that they would be forgotten. However, this achievement masked bitter arguments over how to preserve the battlefield, where to place each monument, and who deserved to be recognized. Discover the battle for the memory of Gettysburg, waged by these veterans with literature, litigation, and legislation.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: The Union’s Greatest Unsung General- Fighting With and Forgetting Alpheus Williams

Featuring some of the best Rangers historians and authors from across the country this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers historians and authors from across the country this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Historian Daniel Brennan West Virginia University General Alpheus Starkey Williams was considered one Union’s most reliable commanders having led troops across seven states. Despite this he began and ended the war with the same rank passed over for promotion while less experienced men advanced. He once wrote in frustration “there is an unwritten history…that somebody will be obliged to set right some day.” Discover Williams’s history marked by battles between personal insecurity and deep pride in his men between military success and postwar obscurity.

"History Kid's" Reading Adventure

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg Na......More

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

Join us inside the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center Theater. Ask at the National Park Service Information Desk in the main lobby for more details.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: If These Things Could Talk- Objects from the Collection of the Gettysburg National Military Park

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Every artifact has a voice—if we’re willing to listen. If These Things Could Talk invites you to explore the powerful personal connections that Gettysburg National Military Park staff have with objects in the park’s museum collection. In this special interpretive program, rangers and staff members share the stories behind their favorite artifacts—some well-known, others rarely seen—offering unique insights into the people, events, and legacies of Gettysburg. Join us to uncover how even the smallest item can speak volumes about the past, and reflect on what stories the objects around us might one day tell.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: Outside of Lincoln's White House- Civil War Era Men and Women of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Ranger Bryan Cheeseboro, Civil War Defenses of Washington DC Most histories of Washington, D.C. during the Civil War only talk about President Lincoln, Congress and the familiar national landmarks of the city.  Most people know very little about the District of Columbia (which in 1861 was the same size as Gulfport, Mississippi today) and the ordinary people who called Washington City and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia countryside home during the War of the Rebellion.  Using photographs, original writings and other researched information, U.S. Park Ranger Bryan Cheeseboro brings to light the stories of “everybody else” and presents a diversity of Union and Confederate men and women, Blacks and Whites, and free and enslaved in and around Washington during the war.  

"History Kid's" Reading Adventure

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg Na......More

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

Join us inside the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center Theater. Ask at the National Park Service Information Desk in the main lobby for more details.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: Captured at Gettysburg! The Prisoner of War Experience at the High Water Mark of the Civil War

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Ranger Christopher Gwinn, Chief of Interpretation and Education, Gettysburg National Military Park What was the experience of those taken captive during the Battle of Gettysburg? This program explores the harrowing experiences of Union and Confederate prisoners of war—from the moment of capture to their uncertain fates beyond the battlefield. Join us as we examine how the Gettysburg National Military Park memorial landscape remembers, reveals, and sometimes overlooks this important chapter in the Gettysburg story.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: "My heart yearns to have his remains" Dr. J.W.C. O'Neal and the Repatriation of the Confederate Dead at Gettysburg

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Ranger Dan Welch, Gettysburg National Military Park Although much is known about the creation of the National Cemetery and the reburial of the Union dead thereof, little has been written or remembered about the Confederate remains left behind on the battlefield. One of several important figures to this story, Dr. John W.C. O'Neal, worked diligently to record the locations of these dead and their identities. He further worked with families across vast distances and periods of time to locate their loved ones remains and have them shipped back to their hometown and family cemeteries. Learn more about Dr. O'Neal, his work with the Confederate dead, and the stories of closure he brought many southern families. 

"History Kid's" Reading Adventure

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg Na......More

“History Kids” Reading Adventures Club includes books and activities for kids ages 4 to 10, and this year’s theme is “250 Years of Change-Makers” to commemorate 250 years of American history.All programs are free of charge.Join us inside the theater at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

Join us inside the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center Theater. Ask at the National Park Service Information Desk in the main lobby for more details.

2026 Winter Lecture Series: A National Shrine- The History of Gettysburg National Cemetery

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Ranger Daniel Vermilya, Eisenhower National Historic Site Well known as the location of Lincoln's famed Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg National Cemetery has a deep and powerful history beyond November 19, 1863. This cemetery's evolution from a small-town hill to a battleground, to a necessary burial ground, to iconic hallowed ground, encapsulates how Americans have fought, sacrificed, and cared for their fallen for generations. As part of the America 250th commemorations, join Eisenhower NHS Ranger Dan Vermilya to explore the history and meaning of Gettysburg National Cemetery and those who are buried there. 

2026 Winter Lecture Series: The Boy Major- Joseph W. Latimer in the American Civil War

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held a......More

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.This week:Historian Billy Griffith, Gettysburg Foundation Brentsville, Virginia native Joseph White Latimer was one of the rising stars in the Confederate Artillery when his life was tragically cut short at age 19 following a mortal wound received at the battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. When the Civil War commenced, Latimer was in his second year at the Virginia Military Institute. He did not return to complete his studies, however, and instead joined the Courtney Artillery in September 1861 as a second lieutenant. His star rose quickly despite his young age, and he was made a major in R. Snowden Andrews’ Battalion by the spring of 1863. Affectionately referred to as the “Boy Major,” Latimer’s decision to join the fight, which he made while home in Brentsville in August 1861, placed him on the path to Gettysburg and towards an untimely death.