s the 1963 centennial celebration of the Battle of Gettysburg approached, it was clear that unlike previous milestone commemora A tions in 1913 and 1938, this one would be harder to embrace as one of reconciliation. America in 1963. Instead, the centennial commemoration “was intended to heal a fractured citizenry by extolling the United States as the savior of democracy and advancing a vision of undisputed American supremacy—political, economic, moral, and military—in the global war against Communism.”
