GETTYSBURG REUNION GROUP: 1913 PANORAMIC “GREAT PEACE JUBILEE” VIEW AND A VETERAN’S 75TH-ANNIVERSARY MEDAL IN ITS ORIGINAL BOX

Comprising two items:

1. Large panoramic photograph of the 50th Anniversary Encampment, Gettysburg, July 1913.

Frank Edwards, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania (signed and captioned in the negative, “Copyright Frank Edwards / Huntingdon Pa” and “Gettysburg Camp – 50th Anniversary – July 1913”). Silver-gelatin panoramic print, nearly four feet in length, showing the vast tent city erected on the fields south of town; mounted and framed. The sweeping view takes in ordered company streets of Sibley tents, temporary roadways, trees and hedgerows, and distant ridgelines, an expansive record of the “Great Peace Jubilee” attended by tens of thousands of Union and Confederate veterans. Approx. 51 1/2 x 8 in., housed in a 58 1/8 x 14 15/16 in. frame. 

2. Official medal for the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, 1938, with named camp bar and original government issue box.

Bronze multi-part badge suspended from a tricolor silk ribbon, surmounted by an American eagle over paired shields (United States and Confederate States), with a central scroll engraved “MARTIN CAMP.” Circular pendant below reading “75TH ANNIVERSARY / BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG,” the obverse with fasces flanked by laurel and oak. Together with the original blue presentation box lettered: “Presented by The United States on the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.” Overall length of badge approx. 3 3/4 in. (9.5 cm); pendant diameter approx. 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm).

The 1913 semicentennial reunion, popularly styled the Great Peace Jubilee, brought more than 50,000 aging veterans back to the battlefield, where they lived in an immense, federally supplied camp, shared rations, and participated in commemorations designed to emphasize national reconciliation. The present panorama, boldly captioned in the negative by photographer Frank Edwards, is a rare, richly detailed survey of that temporary city and one of the most evocative visual records of the reunion’s scale.

A generation later, in 1938, the 75th-anniversary reunion marked the final mass gathering of Civil War veterans (by then largely nonagenarians). The United States presented each accredited attendee with an official medal, of which the offered example, retaining its original engraved camp bar and government box, is an especially fine survivor. The 1938 observances also witnessed the dedication of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, cementing Gettysburg’s place as the symbolic locus of sectional reunion.

Together, these two objects narrate the arc of Civil War memory across a quarter-century.

Note: This lot cannot be packaged and shipped in-house. Successful bidders winning items marked as being packaged and shipped by a third-party service are responsible for paying the third party directly. We are happy to offer complimentary drop-off service to local third-party packing/shipping companies in Columbus, Ohio.