Soon after the battle, Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, commissioned
Attorney David Wills, of Gettysburg, to purchase this ground as a
cemetery for the Union dead. While reburials from the temporary graves
on the battlefield were in progress, a committee arranged for a formal
dedication on November 19, 1863. President Lincoln delivered his famous
Gettysburg Address on that occasion. The National Monument,
commemorating the Union soldiers who fell at Gettysburg, was dedicated,
in 1869, on the site where Lincoln spoke. A memorial to the address was
erected, in 1912, near the west gate of the cemetery.