Bruce William Boxleitner is an American actor and writer who specializes in playing adventure heroes and good guys. He's known for his roles in the TV series Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Babylon 5, Bring 'Em Back Alive, and How the West Was Won. He also starred in the 1982 Disney film Tron and its 2010 sequel, Tron: Legacy, as Alan Bradley/Tron.

William Henry Seward was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869 and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States senator.

Bo Brinkman is an American director, film producer, and actor. He is known for portraying Major Walter H. Taylor, the aide-de-camp for General Robert E. Lee, in the film Gettysburg and its prequel Gods and Generals. He is also the writer and Director of Gettysburg 1863 coming in November 2026.

On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻 𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗻𝘀 took up his flintlock musket and powder horn and walked out to the scene of the fighting that morning. He encountered a wounded Union soldier and asked if he could use his more modern rifle; the soldier agreed and Burns moved on with the rifle and with cartridges in his pocket, for he had declined an ammunition box, insisting the bullets were more easily accessible to him in his pocket than the box. Approaching Major Thomas Chamberlin of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry, Burns requested that he be allowed to fall in with the regiment. Chamberlin later wrote of Burns moving with deliberate step, carrying his Enfield rifle at a trail.

When President Abraham Lincoln came to Gettysburg to dedicate the Soldiers National Cemetery and deliver his Gettysburg Address that fall, he requested to meet with Burns. Burns accompanied the president on a walk from the David Wills house to the Presbyterian Church on Baltimore Street on November 19, 1863.

Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar and Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America, and Gettysburg: The Last Invasion. From 2006 to 2012, he was a member of the National Council on the Humanities. He has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Charles Warren Center for American Studies at Harvard University. His most recent books are Reconstruction: A Concise History (2019) and Robert E. Lee: A Life (2021).

Edward Everett was the featured keynote speaker at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, delivering a massive two-hour oration that preceded President Abraham Lincoln's famous two-minute address.

Dan Vermilya is a park ranger at Eisenhower National Historic Site in Gettysburg, PA, where he manages education programming. Previously he has worked as a park ranger at Antietam National Battlefield, Monocacy National Battlefield, and Gettysburg National Military Park. He received a B.A. in history and politics from Hillsdale College, and a M.A. in history from John Carroll University. He is a resident of Gettysburg, PA, with his wife Alison, and his sons, James and Joshua.

David Wills attended Pennsylvania (now Gettysburg) College, and by 1854 was an attorney and superintendent of Adams County's schools. Two years later he married Catherine Jane "Jennie" Smyser, and by the summer of 1863 had three children. Wills achieved a variety of accomplishments, such as being appointed president of the Gettysburg Borough Council in 1872, and becoming an Adams County Judge two years later. He also served on numerous boards of directors, including that of the Bank of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Railroad Company.

The Civil War came to the doorstep of the Wills home in 1863. Confederate soldiers first came to Gettysburg in search of supplies on June 26. During the Confederate occupation of the town, Wills saw, "a group of rebels with an axe break open the store door, " of one of his tenants. Local citizens huddled in his cellar. After the battle the Wills home filled quickly with wounded and dying soldiers. Local women acting as nurses tended to these men, and the U.S. Sanitary Commission (an early version of the American Red Cross) established a temporary warehouse here. The U.S. Provost Marshall used the home as headquarters, and Gettysburg's leading citizens met here to make plans for proper burial of the dead. (NPS)

Christopher Gwinn is a fourteen year veteran of the National Park Service. He is a 2006 graduate of Gettysburg College and holds a Masters Degree in Public History. He has worked as an Interpretive Park Ranger at Antietam National Battlefield, Boston National Historical Park, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks, where he created some of the first public programming conducted at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Currently the Chief of Interpretation and Education at Gettysburg National Military Park, he manages and oversees all aspects of the visitor experience, and has written numerous articles and journal entries on the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War era.

Ward Hill Lamon was an American law enforcement officer who was a personal friend and self-appointed bodyguard of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. Lamon was absent the night Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, having been sent by Lincoln to Richmond, Virginia.

Lamon served as the chief marshal in charge of the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863, where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. He organized the massive procession, managed the stage logistics, and served as the primary director of the dedication ceremony. 

Ulysses Grant Dietz is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant. His late mother, Julia, was the President's last living great-grandchild; youngest daughter of Ulysses S. Grant III, and granddaughter of the president's eldest son, Frederick. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant's Tomb in New York City. He is also on the board of the U.S. Grant Presidential Library and Museum at Mississippi State University.

Thomas H. Stockton served as the Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives in 1833, 1835, 1859 and 1861. He was also the pastor of the First Methodist Church in Philadelphia and the editor of Christian World. Stockton gave the opening prayer at the consecration of the National Cemetery Gettysburg, the ceremony during which Abraham Lincoln later gave the Gettysburg Address.