Private Tour
Gettysburg One-Hour Walking Tour: The Civilian Experience
Overview
Available languages
1 hour
Mobile ticket
No other town can boast the history of Gettysburg. It's fascinating birth, its role in the battle, President Abraham Lincoln's visit to give his immortal address, a president who settled here, and so much more!
Walk the streets of Gettysburg with an experienced licensed town guide. Group sizes are generally under ten for these tours.
This tour complements the 1:00 p.m. tour (Danger & Courage). This tour covers the Northern End of town; the Civilian Experience covers the Southern End.
Additional Info
Wheelchair accessible
Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
Service animals allowed
Public transportation options are available nearby
Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
What‘s Included
One-hour walking tour
What To Expect
Gettysburg
Walk historic Gettysburg with a licensed town guide from the largest and most established guide company. Discover Gettysburg’s history and discover details of the town during the battle. Listen to the stories of the civilians, who felt the bullets whistle by, heard the piteous sobs of the wounded and smelled the dead as they decomposed in the July heat. Find out how many civilians were killed or wounded. Learn how fewer than 2,300 men, women and children cared for the 22,000 wounded soldiers who were left behind when the 2 armies moved on. Hear the memories of President Lincoln’s visit in Nov. 1863.
Options
Gettysburg One-Hour Walking Tour: The Civilian Experience
Reviews
119 reviews
Total reviews and rating from Viator & Tripadvisor
First Rate Tours.
ralphvL3058MM,
Nov 20, 2025
- Review from Tripadvisor
5.00Took the Civilian Experience Tour with Brad in the morning, and the Danger and Courage Tour with Karen in the afternoon. What a wonderful experience. Both Brad and Karen are knowledgeable, friendly and entertaining. Since arriving back home most of my conversations now start with: "Did you know..."
Interesting history
Susan W,
Nov 13, 2025
- Review from Viator
5.00Brenda made you think of what the towns people had to deal with when thousands of soldiers came to their town and fought.
Loved our tour guided by Terry Hall
719jayned,
Nov 12, 2025
- Review from Tripadvisor
5.00Terry Hall was an excellent tour guide. He was interesting, knowledgeable and very considerate of his group. He stopped to point out interesting facts, but also stopped at benches to give the group a brief rest break and let us stand in the shade instead of the hot sun. Thank you, Terry, for a great experience!
Terry knew his stuff!
Beverly C,
Nov 4, 2025
- Review from Viator
5.00It turned out being just me and my guide Terry on our walking tour. He was very interesting to listen to as he brought history to life. I appreciated his kindness at every turn.
Great Guide to the Town of Gettysberg
Wanderer723637,
Oct 30, 2025
- Review from Tripadvisor
5.00Bill Hartman, our guide, was absolutely terrific! Not only did he show us the sites but provided us with a wonderful "insider's" narrative about what we were seeing. He clearly loves Gettysburg and his work and made our trip to the town itself interesting and fun...
Excellent Tour
Denise M,
Oct 30, 2025
- Review from Viator
5.00Fun, interesting, and extremely well researched guided tour. Brenda R. was our guide for this tour. Her photos, news clippings, and additional personal accounts from citizens of the time really bring the past to life.
This was a very...
Julie K,
Oct 27, 2025
- Review from Viator
5.00This was a very informative tour. It was an easy walk, only an hour and the stories were very interesting. The things we learned on this tour were not the same stories that we had heard at the battlefield, they seemed more personal while being historically accurate and peaked the human interest.
5 stars
Bruce B,
Oct 25, 2025
- Review from Viator
5.00Doug was an excellent guide. He was very friendly and knowledgeable. He knew everything that anyone needed to know.
An Exceedingly Well-Spent Hour and a Half
Q1576HLmichaels,
Oct 22, 2025
- Review from Tripadvisor
5.00My wife was in meetings, and so I was solo and the only client on my tour with my guide Brenda. It was great. We covered a fair amount of ground (literal) and a fair amount of history and happily stretched the tour a little past its scheduled 90-minute end. Brenda's is full of rich vignettes that reveal meaningful things about the experiences of townspeople who endured and coped with the awful challenges they faced. The 21-year-old young woman who recoiled from the sight of blood and yet pushed herself to care for maimed and dying solders, blood all around, the air full of screaming, taking many of them into her home -- service that ultimately led to her marriage to the brother of a solder who died despite her care as she read him, at his request, from John 14. The expensive and complicated process by which a formal cemetery was formed by disinterring and moving the fallen from shallow battlefield graves to a proper cemetery evidencing dignity and respect. The work done by black men to move and re-bury those bodies, men who by color were disqualified from burial with them. And, of course, many other stories amounting to portholes to long ago history. Best, during all of that, there was time to sit on a bench here or there and reflect on what things meant and speculate on reasons for, or motives or consequences concerning, things that happened. In a nutshell, Brenda was phenomenally informative and thoughtful and a pleasure to be with.
Brenda was an excellent knowledgeable guide
robingU5780QO,
Oct 21, 2025
- Review from Tripadvisor
5.00Brenda Ritterpusch was an excellent knowledgeable guide. It was just my husband, my son and myself. She was always telling us where to sit to take a breather and she had pictures of everything we were discussing. We all had an excellent time and learned a lot about Gettysburg. Thank you Brenda!
Related Experiences
Operated by Gettysburg Licensed Town Guides