Lincoln Cemetery

The Black labourers of Gettysburg found, dug up and carried in most of the Union dead who lie in the Soldiers' National Cemetery, and could not be buried there themselves. This ground on Long Lane is where they went instead. It was established in 1867 by the Sons of Good Will, a Black benevolent society, and roughly thirty veterans of the United States Colored Troops lie here, along with more than four hundred other members of the town's Black community. The bar was custom rather than written rule, which is how two Black veterans did eventually reach the national ground, one of them not until 1936. The man who connects the two cemeteries is Basil Biggs, who is buried here. Biggs was born free in Maryland, taught himself veterinary work, and moved to Gettysburg in 1858 so his children could be schooled. After the battle the contract to bring in the Union dead went to a white contractor, F. W. Biesecker, at a dollar fifty nine a body; Biesecker subcontracted the actual work to Biggs at a dollar twenty five. From October 1863 to March 1864 Biggs and the crew he hired exhumed, coffined and hauled in 3,354 men, some from as far as Hanover, fourteen miles off. He used the money to buy thirty acres from Peter Frey on the Taneytown Road. The National Cemetery is half a mile from here. Lincoln's speech there is the most quoted passage in American public life, and the men who prepared the ground he spoke over were sent to a separate field to be buried themselves.