In the War Between the States or otherwise known as the American Civil War, the Battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was the high water mark of the war. Gettysburg region was as far north as the Confederacy or the Rebels advanced. Shortly after the horrific Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863, the weather began to expose the shallow graves of the hastily buried soldiers. Residents of Adams and Franklin Counties noticed in their fields, orchards and gardens the exposed bodies. A Gettysburg resident and attorney, David McConaughy, urged proper burial of the dead in a cemetery to honor the Northern soldiers. Another Gettysburg resident and attorney, David Wills, agreed and used his political connections to contact Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin who pledged to provide commonwealth funds to purchase land and make arrangements to create a cemetery to honor the Union dead. Wills and McConaughy had a falling out regarding design and location of the cemetery. Eventually David Wills became the primary agent for the cemetery. Funds were provided by Pennsylvania to purchase Cemetery Hill chosen for its important key position in the Union battle lines and adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery. The Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg was designed by William Saunders, a landscape architect. The design provided only for the Northern dead – 3,512 Union soldiers. Samuel Weaver and his laborers performed the removal of the Union dead from the shallow graves. The dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery took place November 19, 1863. Originally David Wills had proposed October for the dedication but the leading dedication speaker, Edward Everett, a prominent orator and statesman, asked for a one month delay to prepare his speech. As almost an afterthought, President Abraham Lincoln was invited to attend and offer a few appropriate remarks – now known as the Gettysburg Address. The night before the dedication Abraham Lincoln stayed in the David Wills house and reportedly worked on the remarks he would make the following day at the dedication following Everett’s two hour oratory. Numerous monuments and memorials were included in the design of the cemetery. The most well-known is the Soldiers’ National Monument erected in a central position. The Monument was designed by Batterson-Canfield Co. as a national memorial of sorrow. The cornerstone was laid July 4, 1865 and fully finished July 1, 1869. As part of the design four marble figures were carved by a well-known sculptor, Randolph Rogers, and there is a bronze figure of Liberty at the top of the central column. The first statue erected was the New York Monument honoring Major General John F. Reynolds who died in the battle. The cemetery for the Union dead was finished in 1869. In 1872 the administration of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg was turned over to the Federal Government. In the following years other internments were made. From 1870 to 1873 the Confederate dead were removed from the battlefield by Samuel Weaver who had the remains boxed and shipped to the South. Many of the Rebels who fought in the battle at Gettysburg eventually were reinterred in Richmond, Virginia’s Hollywood Cemetery. As David Wills was agent for the governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew Curtin, John Bartlett was agent for the governor of Rhode Island, James Y. Smith. Both men were faithful and active participants on the Board of Commissioners of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Eventually, David Wills became President of the Cemetery Board of Managers and John R. Bartlett was the Board of Managers Secretary. In 1874 Bartlett created a book about the cemetery “The Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg.” Lehigh University Library has an additional Bartlett collection in its Special Collections – a Scrapbook from 1865-1885 of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, portraits, reactions to the assassination.