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Veterans shaking hands at the 50th anniversary of the battle.
Credit: Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the epic battle of Gettysburg, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania extended invitations to every honorably discharged Confederate and Union veteran in the nation. In 1913 more than 50,000 Civil War veterans came to Gettysburg to remember their comrades who gave "the last full measure of devotion."