Military & Wartime

Carlisle, PA · est. 1947

On June 27, 1863, Gen. Ewell's Confederate corps marched along this road into Carlisle as part of Lee's bold invasion aimed at Harrisburg, sending Jenkins' cavalry ahead to scout the way. Two days later, Lee recalled Ewell to concentrate the army near Cashtown, drawing the Confederates back toward the ground where the Battle of Gettysburg would unfold. This road traced the high-water line of the Southern thrust into Pennsylvania.

Greene Township, PA · est. 1947

In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia poured north into Pennsylvania, and General Richard S. Ewell's corps marched this road bound for Carlisle with orders to threaten the state capital at Harrisburg. Before he could strike, Ewell was recalled on June 29 to concentrate with Lee near Cashtown. Within days those converging roads would funnel both armies into the fields around Gettysburg.

Guilford Township, PA · est. 1947

Chambersburg felt the Confederate invasion early: General Albert G. Jenkins' Southern cavalry rode in on June 15, 1863, well ahead of the main army, and returned to lead the advance a week later. On June 26, Robert E. Lee himself entered the town at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia. From this staging ground the Confederates fanned out across south-central Pennsylvania in the days before Gettysburg.

Ayr Township, PA · est. 1947

This corner of the Cumberland Valley changed hands repeatedly during the 1863 invasion, occupied three times by Confederate columns pushing north. General Albert G. Jenkins' cavalry came first on June 19, followed by General George H. Steuart's troops in late June and, after a brief skirmish with Union forces, General John D. Imboden's command on June 29. Each passage marked the shifting tide of Lee's campaign.

Penn Township, PA · est. 1947

In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate army swept deep into Pennsylvania, and General Jubal Early's division ranged across York County ahead of the main force. On June 27, men detached by General John B. Gordon passed through Hanover by this route to destroy a railroad bridge at Hanover Junction, cutting Union communications. Their work done, the raiders rejoined Gordon as the armies drew toward a collision at Gettysburg.

Penn Township, PA · est. 1947

As the Gettysburg Campaign reached its crisis, Union cavalry under General Judson Kilpatrick scoured the countryside hunting for J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate horsemen. On June 30, 1863, Stuart struck here, but was repulsed. Cut off from Early's departed column, Stuart rode north to Carlisle and did not reach the Gettysburg battlefield until July 2 — a delay that left Lee blind to Union movements at a critical hour.

Dover Township, PA · est. 1947

In the last days of June 1863, part of General Jubal Early's Confederate division advanced on York along this road, spreading Lee's army across southern Pennsylvania. From here Early sent Colonel French toward York Haven to burn the Susquehanna bridges, hoping to sever the region's rail links. Then, ordered to concentrate with Lee, most of Early's men marched back over this same road on June 30 toward the fields at Gettysburg.

Wrightsville, PA · est. 1947

On June 28, 1863, Confederate troops sent by General Jubal Early reached Wrightsville, aiming to cross the mile-long Susquehanna bridge and press on toward Harrisburg, the state capital. Rather than let the enemy over the river, retreating Union militia set the great covered bridge ablaze. The flames barred the Confederate advance and marked the farthest eastward reach of Lee's invasion.

West Manchester Township, PA · est. 1947

On June 28, 1863, General John B. Gordon's brigade of Early's division marched through York along this route on its way to Wrightsville and the Susquehanna. Early's main force lingered here in York until June 30, when it turned west to reunite with Lee's army. Within days those same soldiers would be fighting at Gettysburg, the greatest battle of the war.

Berwick Township, PA · est. 1948

In late June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army spread across southern Pennsylvania, Confederate divisions under Jubal Early swept eastward toward the Susquehanna. Troops led by John B. Gordon marched past this spot on June 27 bound for York, while Early's main column moved along a parallel road through Hampton and East Berlin. Both wings converged on York the next day — the deepest penetration the Confederacy would make into the North before the armies collided days later at Gettysburg.

Guilford Township, PA · est. 1948

In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had pushed deep into Pennsylvania, and Lee himself made Chambersburg his headquarters. Learning that Union forces had crossed the Potomac and were closing in, he ordered his scattered corps to concentrate near Cashtown and marched out of the city along this road. Within days those converging armies would collide a few miles east at Gettysburg.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1949

By late June 1863, Confederate General Richard Ewell's corps had pushed as far north as Carlisle, the high-water reach of Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania. On June 28 Ewell received Robert E. Lee's orders to concentrate the army, and over the next day his divisions marched south from Carlisle over this road through Mount Holly Springs, York Springs, and Heidlersburg toward a small crossroads town called Gettysburg. Those movements set the stage for the war's most consequential battle.

Snake Spring Township, PA · est. 1963

In June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army pushed north into Pennsylvania, militia under Colonel J.C. Higgins dug the entrenchments still traceable along these roadsides to guard the vital railroad at Altoona against a feared Confederate thrust. The threat never materialized: as the armies converged on Gettysburg at the end of June, the danger passed and the earthworks were never tested. They remain a quiet trace of the anxiety that gripped the Pennsylvania countryside that summer.

Camp Hill, PA · est. 1963

In the last days of June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army pushed north, Confederate cavalry under General Albert G. Jenkins probed toward the Pennsylvania capital at Harrisburg. Oyster Point, near present-day Camp Hill, marked the high-water mark of that advance before local militia met the Southerners in a sharp skirmish on June 29. Within days the Confederate tide would recede toward the fields of Gettysburg.

Waynesboro, PA · est. 1964

On June 23, 1863, Confederate troops under General Jubal Early occupied Waynesboro as Lee's army swept into Pennsylvania. The next day they marched by Mont Alto toward Greenwood, and on June 25 received General Ewell's order to press on to York. These movements were part of the wide Confederate sweep across south-central Pennsylvania in the days before the armies converged at Gettysburg.

Antrim Township, PA · est. 1964

On June 22, 1863, the 1st New York Cavalry clashed here with the Confederate advance guard under General Albert G. Jenkins, one of the first armed encounters as Lee's army entered Pennsylvania. In the fighting Corporal William H. Rihl of Philadelphia fell—the first Union soldier killed in action on Pennsylvania soil. He was buried near where he died, and this ground became his memorial.

Hampden Township, PA · est. 1997

As Robert E. Lee's army pushed deep into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, its advance reached almost to the state capital before turning back toward a small town called Gettysburg. Here at Sporting Hill on June 30, hastily mustered New York militia and a Philadelphia battery clashed with Confederate cavalry probing the defenses of Harrisburg. It was the northernmost fighting of the entire campaign, and the graycoats soon withdrew toward Carlisle, leaving their dead behind.

Antrim Township, PA · est. 1997

In the tense weeks before the guns opened at Gettysburg, Confederate columns poured north through the Cumberland Valley on their way to the largest battle ever fought on American soil. General Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps used this route in June 1863 to spearhead Lee's second invasion of the North, with Jubal Early's division peeling off toward Waynesboro. Within days these same forces would converge on a small crossroads town to the east, where three days of fighting decided the campaign.

Straban Township, PA · est. 1998

On July 3, 1863, as the great battle raged at Gettysburg, a major cavalry fight unfolded about a mile southeast of here. Union horsemen under Gen. David McM. Gregg met Confederate cavalry led by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, whose aim was to strike the Union rear at the decisive moment. Through a series of mounted charges Gregg's troopers drove Stuart from the field, blunting the threat.

Hampden Township, PA · est. 2001

In the last days of June 1863, as Lee's army pushed deep into Pennsylvania, Confederate cavalry commander Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins made his headquarters in this 1787 Rupp family house. His brigade, attached to Ewell's Corps, had ridden through Mechanicsburg to scout the approaches to the state capital at Harrisburg, with an attack planned for June 30. That assault never came—the troops were recalled south to concentrate at Gettysburg, and the war's greatest battle opened instead.

Reading Township, PA · est. 2008

In the last days of June 1863, as the armies converged on Gettysburg, part of Confederate General Jubal Early's division tramped past this ground on its march toward York. Passing by Mummasburg and Hunterstown on June 27, the troops returned two days later along a route just to the north, heading toward Heidlersburg. Their movements were part of the sweeping maneuvers that set the stage for the war's most consequential battle.

Straban Township, PA · est. 2020

As the armies converged on Gettysburg, the fighting spilled into the surrounding countryside. Near Hunterstown on July 2, 1863, Union cavalry under Gen. Judson Kilpatrick — with brigades led by the young George A. Custer and Elon J. Farnsworth — clashed with Confederate horsemen under Gen. Wade Hampton. The four-hour running fight ended with neither side able to claim a clear victory.

Ayr Township, PA · est. 2021

As Robert E. Lee's army pushed into Pennsylvania in June 1863, Confederate raiding parties fanned out into Fulton County to seize horses, livestock, and supplies. On June 29, troopers of the 1st New York Cavalry struck one such party, killing two enemy soldiers, wounding several, and capturing 32 men including their captain. The two Confederate dead were buried here by local residents.

Jefferson, PA · est. 2009

In the tense weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, the war came to the doorsteps of ordinary York County families. As thousands of Confederate and Union troops marched through Jefferson, both armies seized horses, livestock, and food, and Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry occupied the town at the end of June. Days later those same roads funneled the armies toward the fields of Gettysburg, where the war's turning point would unfold.

Philadelphia, PA

Neighbors set this stone — carried from the battlefield at Gettysburg — in 1916 to mark the site of one of the Civil War's largest Union military hospitals, the West Philadelphia General, later renamed Satterlee General Hospital. Sprawling across West Philadelphia, Satterlee treated tens of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers, including many brought north from Gettysburg itself in July 1863. A piece of the battlefield thus commemorates the place where its casualties were nursed.

Gifford, IL

In the small Champaign County village of Gifford, a plain and heartfelt memorial honors those who served in the nation's armed forces. Naming no single war, it stands as the community's collective salute to its sons and daughters in uniform.

Farmers Branch, TX

Dr. Samuel H. Gilbert reached Texas about 1850 and by 1857 had built this native-limestone house on 275 acres, combining a medical practice with farming and livestock. A community leader, he helped outfit a local militia unit during the Civil War and later drew the railroad through Farmers Branch by selling land to the Dallas & Wichita line in 1874. The vernacular center-passage house, with Greek Revival touches and twin chimneys, is a rare survivor of early Texas homebuilding.

Gilberton, PA

In the heart of Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region, the small borough of Gilberton raised this tribute to the local men and women who served in the nation's defense. Communities like this one sent a remarkable share of their sons and daughters into uniform, and the hard coal mined from these hills helped power the country through its 20th-century wars. The memorial gathers that shared sacrifice into a single, lasting promise of remembrance.

Fredericksburg, TX

Once crossed by the trails of roving Indian peoples, these Hill Country lands were settled by German immigrant pioneers in 1846, with a group of Mormons founding Zodiac the next year. The county was created and organized in 1848 and named for Richard Addison Gillespie, a Texas frontier defender and Mexican War captain who was killed at the Battle of Monterrey in 1846. Fredericksburg became its seat.

Gilmer, TX

Founded in 1846 and named for Thomas W. Gilmer — U.S. Secretary of the Navy and a fervent champion of Texas annexation — this East Texas town came of age just as Texas joined the Union. During the Civil War it served as a supply, training, production, and educational center for the Confederacy, and later thrived as a hub of farming, lumbering, and oil. Today it is perhaps best known for its long-running Yamboree sweet-potato festival.

Seattle, WA

This ginkgo was grown from a seed of a tree that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and was given by Green Legacy Hiroshima as a living symbol of peace. Ginkgoes were among the first plants to leaf again in the bombed city, making them enduring emblems of survival and renewal.

Marshall, TX

Lucy Holcombe Pickens (1832–1899) grew up at Wyalucing, her family's East Texas plantation home that was a hub of social and cultural life among the surrounding plantations. Celebrated for her beauty and charm, she became the only nineteenth-century Texas woman honored with a portrait on currency—the Confederate $100 bill. Her husband served as the Civil War governor of South Carolina, and from 1863 to 1865 Wyalucing housed the Confederate Post Office Department west of the Mississippi.

Dunbar Township, PA · est. 1948

Christopher Gist was a frontier surveyor for the Ohio Company who accompanied the young George Washington on his 1753 mission to warn the French at Fort LeBoeuf. He settled this plantation in the wilderness in 1753, but the following year the frontier war caught up with it: Washington paused his campaign here in 1754 before falling back to Fort Necessity, and pursuing French forces destroyed the place. It was one of the earliest English settlements west of the Alleghenies.

Munfordville, KY

Built between 1819 and 1822 by Colonel Aylette Hartswell Buckner, Glen Lily was in 1823 the birthplace of Simon Bolivar Buckner. He grew up to command Confederate forces in the Civil War, famously surrendering Fort Donelson in 1862. Buckner later returned to public life as governor of Kentucky from 1887 to 1891 and, in 1896, ran as a candidate for vice president.

Brenham, TX

Scottish-born Thomas Affleck (1812–1868) was among the 19th century's most influential writers on agriculture, and from 1858 he ran a 3,500-acre plantation near here with celebrated nurseries and experimental fields. An early champion of conservation farming, he surrounded his Glenblythe mansion with gardens, greenhouses, mills, and workshops, and during the Civil War his workshops built wagons and ambulances and fed a Confederate legion training nearby. After the war he worked to rebuild Texas farming and even traveled to Europe to recruit new settlers.

Morris Plains, NJ

Glenbrook began as a modest colonial dwelling, raised around 1752 in the New Jersey hills near Morris Plains. During the Revolution, mounted 'light horse' troops were quartered here, tying the house to the war that swept through the region. Enlarged in 1868 by Jonathan Roberts — who went on to found a local library association in 1881 — it grew from a working farmstead into a fixture of community life.

Glencoe, MN

Laid out in June 1855 by Martin McLeod, John H. Stevens, and other town founders, Glencoe rose quickly to become the seat of McLeod County. When the U.S.–Dakota War erupted in 1862, fear swept the Minnesota frontier and the young town threw up fortifications, garrisoning as many as four companies of soldiers behind its walls. The fort marked here embodied a settlement bracing itself amid one of the era's most wrenching conflicts.

Glencoe, MN

This memorial in Glencoe, Minnesota, honors all local residents who served in the United States armed forces across the generations. Small prairie towns like Glencoe sent sons and daughters to every American conflict, and memorials like this gather their service into one place of civic gratitude. It stands as the community's collective thank-you to its veterans.

Corpus Christi, TX

This memorial honors the American service members who fought in the Global War on Terrorism, the campaigns launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks that spanned Afghanistan, Iraq, and operations around the world. Placed among Corpus Christi's cluster of veterans' monuments, it commemorates a generation of men and women called to a new and open-ended kind of conflict. It stands for the sacrifices of those who served in the nation's longest era of continuous combat.

York, PA · est. 1949

The old Globe Inn that once stood here was York's finest lodging, welcoming statesmen, officers, and travelers passing through the town. Its most celebrated guest arrived in 1825, when the aging Marquis de Lafayette, touring the nation he had helped free, was honored with a grand reception. His gracious toast—"To the Town of York"—was long remembered as a highlight of that triumphal visit.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2006

At the height of the Cold War, the CIA hatched one of its boldest intelligence gambits: recovering a Soviet submarine from three miles down in the Pacific. The cover story was billionaire Howard Hughes mining the seabed for manganese, but the true purpose was espionage, and the Glomar Explorer—built at the Sun Shipbuilding yard in Chester—was the improbable machine to do it. In 1974 its giant claw lifted portions of the wreck, and the recovered Soviet sailors were given a burial at sea.

Santa Fe County, NM

In March 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed at Glorieta Pass in the mountains southeast of Santa Fe, in a fight remembered as the "Gettysburg of the West." When Union troops destroyed the Confederate supply train, Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley's campaign to seize the Southwest and its route to California collapsed.

New York, NY

On October 18, 1776, Colonel John Glover led a small force of Patriots in a fighting delay against advancing British and Hessian troops under General William Howe in what became the Battle of Pell's Point. By slowing the enemy's flanking advance, Glover's men bought George Washington's army the time it needed to withdraw north toward White Plains and Westchester. This boulder marks the ground near where that stand was made.

Lehighton, PA · est. 2005

In 1746 Moravian missionaries established Gnadenhuetten, a mission town meant to shelter a growing community of Mohican and Delaware converts and the first European settlement in what is now Carbon County. As the French and Indian War engulfed the frontier, tensions boiled over, and on November 24, 1755, the settlement was attacked and burned in a raid encouraged by the French. The victims were laid to rest in what is now the Lehighton Cemetery nearby.

Bonham, TX

The earliest grave in this Fannin County cemetery belongs to R.M.C. Self, who died in 1865, and a decade later settlers drawn by the beauty of the spot raised a brush tabernacle nearby for gatherings. Community custom went so far as to buy a marble slab for a man who died in 1907 with no family or funds. The Carpenter family gave land in 1909, a caretaker came in 1942, and an association formed in 1977 to tend the hundreds of graves, many of them military veterans.

Aledo, TX

On land the Goforth family settled in 1857, a small family burial ground holds four graves, among them a two-year-old boy laid to rest in 1863 while his father was away serving in the 18th Texas Cavalry. Neighbors from the Chadwick family shared the plot as well. It is a quiet record of how sparse frontier settlement and Civil War service shaped early Parker County life.

Town of Huntington, NY

During World War II, the Long Island town of Huntington sent scores of its young men into uniform, and this beachside memorial gathers 127 of their names under the banner of the "Gold Star Battalion." The gold star had by then become the nation's emblem of a family that lost a loved one in service, a tradition carried forward from the First World War. Set where the community gathers by the water, the monument turns an ordinary shoreline into a place of remembrance for a generation that answered the call from a single town.

Corpus Christi, TX

Dedicated in 1931 in Corpus Christi's Spohn Park, this memorial honored the mothers of Nueces County servicemen who died in World War I. Championed by the Daughters of the American Revolution and designed by Mrs. Frank de Garmo, it was the first Gold Star Court of Honor in Texas, complete with a lighted three-foot gold star and, later, a captured British field piece. Listed in the National Register in 1988, it was restored by volunteers beginning in 2000.

Wilmington, NC

Gold Star Families Memorial Monuments like this one belong to a nationwide effort to honor the families of American service members who died in the line of duty. The "Gold Star" tradition reaches back to World War I, when households hung service banners bearing a blue star for a loved one in uniform—and a gold star when that loved one never came home. Standing in Wilmington, this monument gives those families a permanent place of recognition, turning private grief into public remembrance.

Frisco, TX

The Gold Star Families Memorial Monument is part of a national network of monuments conceived by Hershel 'Woody' Williams, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the Battle of Iwo Jima, to honor the families of American service members killed in the line of duty. The term 'Gold Star' dates to World War I, when families hung service flags with a blue star for each member serving and replaced it with a gold star if that person died. This Frisco monument continues a century-old American tradition of publicly honoring military sacrifice across every war.

Elkin, NC

Gold Star Families Memorial Monuments honor the families of American service members who died in the line of duty, a tradition of remembrance rooted in the service flags families displayed during wartime. This monument in Elkin joins a nationwide network of such memorials dedicated to those who gave their lives for the country. It stands as a gathering place for reflection on sacrifice that reaches across generations of American conflicts.

Fishers, IN

A Gold Star Family Memorial honors the families of American service members who died in the line of duty, its cut-out soldier silhouette evoking the loved one no longer present. Part of a national program of such monuments, it recognizes the enduring sacrifice borne by those left behind across generations of American conflict.

Turner County, GA

The Gold Star Memorial program extends the garden clubs' Blue Star tradition to honor Gold Star families — those who lost a loved one in military service. The term dates to World War I, when a family replaced the blue star in its service flag with a gold one after a death in uniform. Sponsored by the Camellia District Garden Clubs with the Garden Club of Georgia and the state transportation department, this marker stands in south-central Georgia's Turner County.

Peoria Heights, IL · est. 2016

Dedicated in 2016, this Gold Star Memorial honors Gold Star families whose loved ones died defending the United States. The gold star traces to World War I, when families replaced the blue star in their service flags with gold to mark a death in uniform. Sponsored by the Peoria Garden Club, the marker carries that tradition of remembrance into central Illinois.

Houston County, GA

This tribute belongs to the Gold Star tradition, in which the families of service members killed in the line of duty are honored with a gold star—a practice that grew out of the service flags of the World War era, when a blue star marked a loved one at war and a gold star marked one who did not return. Placed in Houston County near Robins Air Force Base and its Museum of Aviation, it was sponsored by the Greenbriar Garden Club with the Garden Club of Georgia. Markers like this turn a quiet roadside into a place of remembrance for the cost borne by military families.

Oak Park, IL

This memorial lists the "Gold Star" men of Oak Park who gave their lives in the First World War, naming soldiers, Marines, and aviators from units like the 6th Marines and the 131st Infantry. The gold star became the nation's symbol for a family that had lost a service member, and honor rolls like this one turned private loss into shared civic memory. Each name marks a young man who left an Illinois suburb and did not return.

Anchorage, AK

This cluster of three monuments honors those who served and died in uniform — one for fallen service members broadly, one for the fallen stationed at nearby Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, and one for the military working dogs of the Vietnam War. Together they gather several strands of remembrance in a single quiet space.

New Kensington, PA

In the mill towns of the Allegheny Valley, as across America, a "Gold Star Mother" was a woman who had lost a son or daughter in the nation's wars — the gold star replacing the blue one families hung in their windows while a loved one served. This honor roll gathers the names tied to New Kensington's fallen, a community's ledger of grief kept in bronze and stone. The tradition took hold after World War I and endured through the wars that followed.

Goldthwaite, TX

Three local men bought this ground for a cemetery in 1888, with Houston Roberts the first laid to rest. The Odd Fellows Lodge acquired and expanded it in 1894; among its stories is that of Watson Whittaker, killed in an 1898 train robbery and carried home by a funeral train that made headlines. The city took ownership in 1943, and community groups later added memorials honoring the area's veterans.

Goliad, TX

Goliad ranks among the three oldest municipalities in Texas, rooted in the Aranama Indian village the Spanish called Santa Dorotea and anchored by the Presidio La Bahía and Mission Espíritu Santo, established in 1749. Renamed Goliad in 1829—an anagram honoring the Mexican patriot Hidalgo—it became a crucible of the Texas Revolution. In March 1836, Colonel James Fannin and his men, taken prisoner after the Battle of Coleto, were marched from the La Bahía presidio and executed on Palm Sunday in the notorious Goliad Massacre.