Evergreen Cemetery (Adams County, Pennsylvania)

The Ever Green Cemetery Association of Gettysburg was established at a November 29, 1853 meeting.[7] The association managed the property and oversaw selection of its caretakers. By April 3, 1854, 118 lots had been sold, and the association members' first payments were due.[8] The first interment took place on October 29.[9] Opening ceremonies were held on November 7, 1854,[9] and in his dedication address Reverend John H. C. Dosh asked, "Could a more lovely spot have been chosen?"[10]

The Evergreen Cemetery gatehouse was designed by Philadelphia architect Stephen Decatur Button, built by local contractors George and Henry Chritzman, and completed in November 1855.[11] The Italianate gatehouse served as the caretaker residence.

Battle of East Cemetery Hill, July 2, 1863

Evergreen Cemetery is eponymous with Cemetery Hill,[12] the landform noted as the keystone of the Union position during the Battle of Gettysburg.[13] Major-General Oliver Otis Howard lined the cemetery's high ground with cannons, turning it into an "artillery platform,"[14] and made its gatehouse into XI Corps (Union Army) headquarters.[15]

At dusk on July 2, 5 Louisiana regiments under Brigadier-General Harry T. Hays and 3 North Carolina regiments under Colonel Isaac E. Avery commenced the Battle of East Cemetery Hill, charging Howard's artillery batteries from the east. "Federal soldiers in the Cemetery laid many of the tombstones on the ground" to limit damage,[16] and some of the XI Corps batteries and infantry used the grave monuments "for shelter from the enemy's fire".[17] Historian Frederick Hawthorne wrote of Howard's successful defense: “Lying in reserve in the Evergreen Cemetery, they (73rd Pennsylvania Infantry) rushed out through the cemetery gateway to help drive the Confederates away from Rickett’s and Weidrich’s batteries.”[18]

Evergreen experienced three days as battlefield, and its resulting condition inspired a Union officer to lament: "A beautiful cemetery it was, but now is trodden down, laid a waste, desecrated. The fences are all down, the many graves have been run over, beautiful lots with iron fences and splendid monuments have been destroyed or soiled, and our infantry and artillery occupy those sacred grounds where the dead are sleeping. It is enough to make one mourn."[19]

Two Confederate soldiers mortally wounded during the battle were buried in Evergreen Cemetery.[20]

Detail of a 1904 map showing the National Cemetery (semi-circles right of center) and Evergreen Cemetery (right)

The Consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg took place on November 19, 1863. The speaker's platform used by orator Edward Everett, and then by President Abraham Lincoln to deliver his Gettysburg Address, was located just east of the National Cemetery, on the grounds of Evergreen Cemetery.[21]

From 1893 to 1916, the Gettysburg Electric Railway operated along the cemetery's east and south borders. Following the 1917 demolition of the trolley railway, Evergreen Cemetery expanded southward.

In 1972, the "Evergreen Cemetery archway house" was designated an historic district contributing structure by the Gettysburg Borough Council[22] (1 of 38 outside of the borough).[23] Civilian remains at the site of the 1804[24] Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church cemetery were reinterred at Evergreen Cemetery in 1992.[25]