Along Cemetery Ridge, the Pennsylvania State Memorial faces you. It commemorates the 34,530 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought in the July 1 to 3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. The memorial rises along Cemetery Ridge, the Union battle line on July 2, 1863, and was completed in 1914 as the largest of the state monuments on the Gettysburg Battlefield.
Listen for the sense of purpose in its scale: the idea for a Pennsylvania memorial began in the 1880s when Congressman Andrew G. Curtin proposed a “Pennsylvania Memorial Hall” atop Little Round Top, a 60 ft (18 m)-square hall to display a treasury of trophies and mementos of all the Pennsylvania regiments. That early plan was included in an 1889 appropriations bill but vetoed by Governor James A. Beaver. Eighteen years later the Pennsylvania Legislature appropriated $150,000 for a state memorial; the current site was announced in February 1909.
The design competition was won by New York architect W. Liance Cottrell and Philadelphia sculptor Samuel Murray. This monument honors the 34,530 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought here, its scale stretching from Cemetery Ridge toward Little Round Top, where you can still trace that early idea for a memorial hall.