"On July 1, 1863, Union Gen. John Buford looked out from the cupola atop Schmucker Hall at the Lutheran Theological Seminary to see Confederate soldiers advancing on Gettysburg from the west.

It was John Buford’s brigade of 2,500 men who first encountered Confederate infantry outside a sleepy town in southern Pennsylvania on July 1, 1863. It was the start of the battle of Gettysburg.