ELCA seminary marks 150th anniversary of Battle of Gettysburg

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (ELCA) -- Exactly 150 years ago on July 1, 1863,
Union cavalry commander Gen. John Buford observed Confederate soldiers
advancing on Gettysburg from the west. He surveyed the advance from the
cupola of a Lutheran seminary building. Within a few hours the fields
surrounding the seminary became a battleground, turning the seminary
building into perhaps the largest field hospital of the three-day Battle
of Gettysburg.
The Seminary Ridge Museum opened July 1, 2013, inside that building,
historically known as Schmucker Hall on the campus of the Lutheran
Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. The seminary is one of eight in the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
In a special ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Civil War re-
enactors, tourists, dignitaries and others, the museum opened with its
20,000 square feet of interactive exhibit galleries that tell the story
of the first day of the battle on Seminary Ridge, the care of the wounded
and human suffering within the walls of the building, and an examination
of faith and freedom.
“When the seminary building and campus were overrun by warring
armies 150 years ago, this place became a fierce battleground where the
future of the nation was at stake,” the Rev. Michael Cooper-White,
seminary president, said in welcoming remarks on the steps of the
museum. “In the battle’s aftermath, it was a place of healing for
hundreds, and a hospice where some 70 soldiers closed their eyes for the
final time. We can, we must ponder the meaning of those who, in the words
of one, ‘have come here to stay.’”
Care for more than 600 wounded Union and Confederate soldiers
continued in the building until September 1863.
The building itself is a historical artifact, according to Barbara
Franco, executive director of the museum. The museum is designed to
preserve Schmucker Hall in the historical interpretive period from 1832
to 1914.
About 80 percent of the brick Federal Style building is original,
according to Cooper-White. From the dark wooden floors to the
wainscoting, to the famous cupola, the museum’s purpose is not “to
preserve the past; rather, in opening this interpretive center we look to
the future,” he said, adding that its purpose remains “education, the
patient and persistent search for truth, for answers to the great
questions of conflict and reconciliation, freedom and human bondage,
faith and doubt, which remain the same as they were 150 years ago.”
Tens of thousands of people from the across the country have
gathered here to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the battle -- from
viewing skirmishes and re-enactments to photographing the more than 1,300
monuments and markers that line the Gettysburg landscape.
“People come for the re-enactment, but my prayer is that people
leave with a recommitment to reconciliation for racial justice and
peace,” said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson in remarks following the ribbon
cutting. “The 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement combined with
the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg (serves as occasions
where we) can come together and ask, ‘What is the unfinished work
bequeathed to us? What is the unfinished work of freedom?’”