Remembrance Day 2024: Gettysburg’s Black community seeks national recognition for Lincoln Cemetery

Gettysburg is known around the world as the Civil War’s bloodiest battle that ended as a Union victory on July 4, 1863. But there has been little if any identification of Black soldiers or even a Black community in Gettysburg that should by all rights radiate in the glory that emanates from the Gettysburg mystique.

Each year, the entire Borough of Gettysburg turns out by the thousands in mid-November to commemorate Remembrance Day, the day dedicated to Abraham Lincoln’s iconic “Gettysburg Address” delivered at the Soldiers National Cemetery on November 19, 1883. Remembrance Day in Gettysburg is held on the November weekend day closest to the November 19 date.

The irony of that somber, but glorious, day in November 1863 is that the local Black men who had dug the graves for the burial of 3,500 white Union soldiers in Soldiers National Cemetery were not allowed to honor their own kin and neighbors in this hallowed ground. Soldiers National Cemetery was renamed Gettysburg National Cemetery in later years. 

Jean Howard Green, historian and president of the Lincoln Cemetery Project Association (LCPA), says that Gettysburg’s Black community developed its own burial ground to honor the local Black Civil War veterans who were barred from burial in Gettysburg National Cemetery.

In 1867, in their determination to honor Gettysburg’s Black troops who died in the War, three Black men of means, the Sons of Goodwill, pooled their assets and bought a half-acre of land on the outskirts of town, in Gettysburg’s Black third ward. The available records do not specify the number of veterans buried at the Sons of Goodwill Cemetery at its opening in 1867, but later records show that 30 Black Civil War veterans were buried there and in the re-named Lincoln Cemetery. That count of 30 has remained consistent since 1921.

“Lincoln Cemetery is the only concrete evidence that there was a thriving Black community here in Gettysburg during the time of the Civil War,” Green says. 

TRADITIONAL PROGRAM

The featured speaker at last Saturday’s program was Lenwood Sloan, executive director of the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism.

Sloan is currently an international consultant with the U. S. Embassy in Brussels and the multi-nation “Liberation Route” on a new international WWII heritage trail. He is also creative consultant for the Cameron Museum of Wilmington, N.C., USCT project. In 2011, Sloan served as Pennsylvania’s film commissioner, directing the $60 million film tax credit office. From 2005-2011, he served as director of Pennsylvania’s Cultural and Heritage Tourism Program. 

Sloan reminded his audience that current issues and problems are not as insurmountable as the problems faced by their ancestors in the Civil War generation. 

“Martin Delany said every people must be architects and engineers of their own destiny,” Sloan said. “You are standing on sacred ground. Before you leave here, take one name home with you. Say it, speak it out loud. For we’re all we’ve got.”

The Black nation remains entangled in a great struggle within the greater nation. Sloan said: “We’ve been through this before. Now, we’re engaged in a great Civil War testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. It’s up to you.”

Mayor Rita C. Frealing, the first Black and female  mayor of Gettysburg, and Yvonne Myers, Lincoln Cemetery Project Association treasurer,  shared the podium with Green and the guest speaker. 

Civil War re-enactors of the 3rd United States Colored Infantry participated. The 3rd USCT was organized in Philadelphia on August 3, 1863. It should not be confused with the formation of the 3rd Mississippi United States Colored Cavalry formed in Vicksburg in October 1863.

The 46th Pennsylvania Infantry Band performed music from the Civil War era, “which was fitting and proper for this particular program,” said Green.

PENNSYLVANIA TROOPS

Pennsylvania provided the largest number of Black troops from a Northern state in the Civil War. Eleven USCT regiments consisting of 8,612 individual soldiers were provided. Camp William Penn,  outside Philadelphia, was the training center for the  African American troops recruited from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Included among them was the 3rd  United States Colored Infantry (USCI).

The 3rd USCI was created by the War Department on May 22, 1863, in Philadelphia. Frederick Douglass spoke to the regiment before it was deployed to Fort Wagner and Morris Island in August 1863. Douglass spoke to them about their duties and their self-discipline before they were shipped out from Camp William Penn in Philadelphia. 

“You are a spectacle for men and angels,” Douglass told the yet-untested new troops. “You are in a manner to answer the question, can a Black man be a soldier?” 

Shipped to Florida in early 1864, the 3rd Regiment was mustered out of service on October 31, 1865, in Jacksonville.

Although none of the  troops buried at the Sons of Goodwill Cemetery fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, all were from Adams County, and two of them were assigned to the 3rd USCI.

NATIONAL RECOGNITION

Lincoln Cemetery deserves national recognition, Green says. She submitted the paperwork in 2022 to have Lincoln Cemetery placed on the National Register of Historic Places. She traveled to Harrisburg and was rewarded in learning that Lincoln Cemetery was placed on the list of nominations on June 4, 2024. The nomination was approved, and she is following through with the next steps to acquire the charter. 

By all appearances, Lincoln Cemetery is well on the way to national recognition.

Green said: “Once Lincoln Cemetery has gained the status of being placed on the National Register of Historic Places, that will bring much needed attention to this cemetery and the Black citizens buried there, as well as our 30 United States Colored Troops  buried there.”

COUNTING SITES

In October 2023, the Lincoln Cemetery Project Association completed a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of the graveyard. 

Green says 450 people are buried in Lincoln Cemetery. The 250 grave sites with headstones added to the newly found graves won’t total up to 450, she says, because the GPR could not detect cremations. GPR could only count the coffins.

“They have used the GPR to locate 136 additional graves. There were already the 30 USCT and the 250 civilian burials from the old Zion Church Zion cemetery.  It’s important to note that none of the 136 discovered graves were military graves.”

The Lincoln Cemetery Community Database was developed through the collaboration of Gettysburg College with the Adams County Historical Society. The database identifies 443 individuals buried there including the 30 USCT troops.

TWO EXCEPTIONS

An anomaly evolved that disrupted the pattern of strict segregation at Gettysburg National Cemetery with the transfer of two Black Civil War veterans to the hallowed gravesite several decades after the original consecration. 

Henry Gooden of Gettysburg served in the 127th U.S. Colored Troops drafted from Pennsylvania. Gooden died on August 3, 1876. Initially buried in the Alms House Cemetery, he was reburied in Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 8, 1884. Charles H. Parker joined him there in November 1936,  after his grave was found deteriorated in Yellow Hill Cemetery north of Gettysburg. Parker had served in Company F of the much heralded 3rd USCI. Although some other Black servicemen from later wars are now buried at the national cemetery, Gooden and Parker remain the only two Black veterans of the Civil War buried in Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Some members of the Lincoln Cemetery Project Association have voiced  concerns about bringing the USCT troops together in  some way. But Green says she wants to focus on completing the work currently being done in Lincoln Cemetery.

“I have no problems with the two Black troops remaining buried in the National Cemetery,” Green said two days after the November 16 commemoration. “But we will concentrate on the USCT buried in Lincoln Cemetery. They came from different infantry regiments, and only two are from  the  3rd Infantry.”

The Lincoln Cemetery Project Association (LCPA) is working in collaboration with Gettysburg College and the Gettysburg Black History Museum to identify the people in unmarked graves and to erect headstones for them. 

BLACK HISTORY TRAIL

A number of Gettysburg organizations have collaborated to develop the self-guided Black History Trail. Eleven stops along the trail bring into clear focus some of the most revealing points of Gettysburg’s Black heritage in both the downtown area and the battlefield. 

“To highlight this overlooked history is a wonderful experience for the many visitors  who travel to Gettysburg each year,” said Green. “They will be amazed at the rich Black history that is now available through the Black History Trail.”