On Saturday, May 1, under warm and sunny skies, a group of IWP students, faculty and staff traveled the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
The tour, led by guide Bob Steenstra, covered all the major sites of the three-day battle of July 1863, including Marsh Creek, Seminary Ridge, Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge where the Confederate infantry attack under Maj. Gen. George Pickett (Pickett’s Charge) ended in disaster.
At the conclusion of the three-hour battlefield tour, Dr. Charles Smith, IWP Professor of American Founding Principles and Foreign Policy, presented the Gettysburg Address in the National Cemetery, on the same spot where President Abraham Lincoln delivered it in November 1863.
The event was organized by the Office of Student Affairs, which is planning similar trips for the future.