Eternal Peace Light Memorial

Veterans of the Union and Confederate armies from across the nation converged on Gettysburg in 1938, 75 years after the battle, for their last great reunion. All Civil War veterans were invited with expenses paid, and nearly 2,000 attended; most were in their 90s and many were over 100. On the warm evening of Sunday, July 3, they gathered there with others to dedicate a monument to peace and national unity. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the dedication speech to a crowd estimated at 200,000. Designed by Paul Philipe Cret, the monument was built of Alabama limestone and Maine granite and topped by a natural gas torch intended to burn eternally as a symbol of the unity of the United States. The memorial had first been proposed in 1909 by a Pennsylvania commission planning Gettysburg's 50th anniversary, was taken up again in 1935 by a new commission preparing for the 75th anniversary, received its first state funding from Virginia in 1936, was dedicated in 1938 on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, and was rededicated in 1988 on the 125th anniversary.

Pennsylvania · United States