2024 OP Summer Newsletter

HERITAGE SITES

HERITAGE SITES

The Battle of Gettysburg marked a turning point in the war. Fought over the course of July 1 to July 3, 1863, the Union’s victory ended Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s attempted invasion of the North. While no Orland soldiers fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, other Illinois Regiments, such as the 8th and 12th Illinois, played an integral role in fighting the Confederate forces. However, the Battle of Gettysburg was also the bloodiest battle in the Civil War. More than 50,000 soldiers on both sides died over the course of just three days of fighting. In honor of their sacrifice, a few months later Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address at the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. A copy of the Gettysburg Address is hung proudly in the newly remodeled Orland Park Village Board Room at Village Hall. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the majority of Illinois’ regiments were simultaneously fighting hundreds of miles away at the Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 to July 4, 1863); Illinois soldiers represented nearly a fourth of the troops engaging Confederate forces in that area, including Orland men in the 57th Regiment. Following the Battle of Gettysburg and the Siege of Vicksburg, soldiers from Orland in the 39th, 57th, 88th, and 100th engaged in numerous influential battles up until the end of the war, such as the Atlanta Campaign during the summer of 1864 and the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign from June 1864 to March 1865. The 39th Regiment fought in the Appomattox Campaign in Virginia from March to April 1865, which ended with the surrender of Lee and the Confederate Army on April 9. By May 26, the last military department of the Confederacy disbanded. At the end of the war, soldiers slowly began to make their way back home. However, not everyone survived the conflict. The American Civil War claimed the lives of three percent of the population with more than 1,030,000 individuals losing their lives. Out of the 620,000 soldiers who perished, two-thirds were killed by disease. Orland also suffered mortalities, including Thomas Humphrey (the brother of Orland Park’s first mayor, John Humphrey), Paul Brandau, Joseph Martin, and Edgar H. Mitchell. One unnamed soldier, too sick to tell anyone his name, came to Orland and died. He was buried by Orland residents at Brooks Cemetery in Homer Glen. Today, veterans of the Civil War are remembered on U.S. Route 6 -- also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway -- which runs through Orland Park. The Grand Army of the Republic was founded in 1866 in Decatur, Illinois and comprised of Civil War veterans of the Union Army, Navy, and Marines. By the time of its dissolution in 1956, the organization had hundreds of local

community units across the northern and western United States. A Grand Army of the Republic Highway marker can be found on the eastbound lane of 159th Street, east of Wolf Road. This article was written by Heritage Sites Supervisor Libby Paulson. For more information on the Orland Park Heritage Sites, visit orlandpark.org/ heritagesites or email heritagesites@ orlandpark.org.

| Summer 2024 | orlandpark.org

orlandpark.org | Summer 2024 |

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