A new exhibition at the National Liberty Museum is inviting visitors to slow down, remember, and reflect on what service to others really means. In Service to Others: The Story of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery and the Ongoing Impact of Gettysburg pairs striking contemporary photography with one of the most moving chapters in American history.
The exhibition brings together photographs by Christopher Beane, who documented the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, the final resting place of more than 3,500 Union soldiers who fell in the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Prints made from Beane’s original negatives capture the cemetery’s quiet rows, monuments, and landscapes with a stillness that lets the place speak for itself.
That story began in the battle’s aftermath, when Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin and Gettysburg attorney David Wills set out to create a proper burial ground for the fallen. The cemetery was dedicated on November 19, 1863, the day President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, and its care later passed to the National Park Service.
The museum frames the exhibition around a simple, generous idea: the sacrifices remembered at Gettysburg still call people today toward courage, empathy, and looking out for one another. It is history presented not as dates on a wall, but as a living invitation to serve.
Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $8 for educators, and free for National Liberty Museum members and National Park Service and military personnel. Visitors can also explore the museum’s Pay-It-Forward admission option, which lets guests help cover the cost of a future visitor’s ticket.
Photo: National Liberty Museum
