New 3D experience showcases Gettysburg landmarks as you've never seen them. Virtual tours of homes are 'up-close and personal'

Virtual tour of two-room home of Lydia Leister (NPS images)

Whether Covid-19 or distance is keeping you away from Gettysburg, park officials hope you take in virtual tours of landmarks – most recently, two homes that were riddled by gunfire during the battle and another where President Abraham Lincoln put the finishing touches on his famous address.

Gettysburg National Military Park recently launched a page that features three sites related to the Civil War and the house and show barn at Eisenhower National Historic Site.

“We are thrilled to be able to bring these 3D tours to our visitors. Thanks to this new technology, these historic buildings can be experienced and enjoyed by all our visitors at any time,” Gettysburg Superintendent Steven D. Sims said in a statement. “These amazing tours put the visitor in control of an up-close and personal experience with the stories of each of these structures.” 

Each page has a virtual walk-through of the structure and a second smaller image that provides audio. Viewers can choose which floor to look at, obtain a 3D cutaway image of the entire structure and view floor plans. The tours are available for home computers, smartphones or virtual reality headsets, park officials said.

Here are details on the three homes that date to the July 1863 battle in southern Pennsylvania, as provided by the park. Click each name for a link.

Adam Brian (Bryan) farm (above): The free black man lived on this 12-acre farm with his wife, Elizabeth, and two children. He purchased the land in 1857, grew wheat, barley and hay, and tended a small apple and peach orchard. Afraid of being captured and sold into slavery, Brian and his family left their home when Confederate troops entered Pennsylvania. Following the battle, they returned to find their home riddled with bullet holes, windows smashed, and furniture thrown about the yard. The crops and orchard were ruined, and their farm fields a graveyard for hastily buried soldiers. Brian repaired his home, replaced his fences, and farmed his land until 1869, when he moved to town and worked at a local hotel. “Stand at the southern facing window of the Abraham Brian house and ponder what it must have meant to be an African American citizen of Gettysburg on the eve of the battle," the NPS says.

Lydia Leister house (above): Union Maj. Gen. George G. Meade made the two-room home headquarters during the battle.Late in the evening of July 2, Meade held a council of war in this house to decide if the army should stay and hold their hard-fought high ground or abandon their position.The artillery bombardment prior to Pickett's Charge on July 3 caused considerable damage to the house.

Model of wartime Gettysburg at Wills house

David Wills (left) home: The lawyer’s residence was the center of the clean-up process after the battle and where Lincoln finalized his Gettysburg Address, the speech that transformed the battlefield from a place of death and devastation to the symbol of our nation's "new birth of freedom." The house is now a museum with six galleries.  During the battle, citizens huddled in its cellar. It became a temporary hospital.

It currently is closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.