Gettysburg is a historically important location. It is also where there may have been more instances of human courage, nobility and sacrifice than in any other three day period in American history. The names—Hancock, Buford, Warren, Chamberlain, Longstreet, Custer, Meade, Armistead, Garner, Pickett, and many others—-and their exploits have come down to us through history, but the unrecorded heroics of thousands more anonymous soldiers, many buried unnamed in the mass graves at Gettysburg National Cemetery, were equally remarkable and inspiring.

The Battle of Gettysburg was as vital to the development and preservation of American values as Independence Day, and just as great a symbol of what our ancestors were willing to risk in the quest for the liberty that each of us now enjoys as a birthright. That the Confederacy’s mission was fatally flawed by attaching its passion for freedom to the power to withhold liberty from the enslaved should not diminish our respect for its soldiers’ courage on the field of battle. To look at the long, open field where Gen. Robert E. Lee had General Longstreet order George Pickett’s men to march, in ranks, into Union artillery and massed rifles is to understand that human beings can and will act against self-interest for values they believe are more important than life itself.

I took my father to the battlefield in his 80s, and the old soldier was fascinated, horrified and moved. Dad appeared visibly shaken when he surveyed the open field that bore Pickett’s Charge. “I didn’t realize it was like this,” he said. “Up a grade, in a long line, with artillery and rifles firing at them as they marched.” My father said it made him sick to his stomach.

If you can’t travel to Gettysburg this weekend or this summer, or if the heat is too much to bear, you can celebrate the battle’s heroes by reading the best historical novel I’ve ever read, The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. You should also consider watching the movie based on the novel, “Gettysburg.” Ted Turner’s epic film is long, but the film boasts some wonderful performances by Jeff Daniels as Joshua Chamberlain, Stephen Lang as Pickett, Richard Jordan (who was dying as the film was being made) as Gen. Lew Armistead, and Tom Berenger, unrecognizable as Gen. Longstreet. Turner pulled strings to film on the battlefield, and “Gettysburg” makes the chaotic three days comprehensible. “Gettysburg” also has one of my favorite film soundtracks, by Randy Edelman.

Inspiring, horrifying, amazing, confusing and tragic, the Battle of Gettysburg contained enough ethics lessons and controversies to last any of us a lifetime. We can’t absorb or even know them all. One thing is certain, however: as Americans, we have an obligation to remember.

Here’s the orchestral finale of the film…gives me chills every time.