A Country Divided
The first interactive installations visitors encounter at the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum explore the divisive sentiments that initiated the Civil War conflict and show where each state fell—on the side of secession or union.
Eleven states seceded from the Union between December 1860 and April 1861, creating the greatest crisis the United States has ever known. In this interactive experience visitors hear and read the words of those who shaped this defining moment. When either of the ten voices for Union or ten voices for Secession are selected on the touch screens the overhead screen animates their impassioned sentiments along with the re-enacted voiceover. Through an 1861 map in the interactive, visitors can select each state or territory to learn which side it was on while they hear state declarations on the contentious views and reveal census data breakdowns regarding proportions of white persons to free persons of color and slaves in each state.