Freemasonry at Gettysburg

At Gettysburg, after Confederate General Lewis Armistead was mortally wounded during Pickett's Charge, Union Captain Henry Bingham aided and comforted him as a fellow Freemason, and their bond of brotherhood across battle lines came to symbolize unbreakable ties. That brotherhood laid the cornerstone of the Soldiers' National Monument in 1865. After the cemetery was closed to new burials in the 1960s, Freemasons donated funds to buy additional property, and in 1993 their support made improvements to the National Cemetery Annex possible, including a plaza honoring fallen American soldiers and the Friend to Friend Memorial depicting the battlefield encounter between Bingham and Armistead. The cemetery is the final resting place for Union soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg and for American veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania · United States