I’m always looking for ways to combine education and fun with my kids, so I was excited when my daughter and I had a chance to visit the Children of Gettysburg 1863 Museum in late 2025.
The Children of Gettysburg 1863 is run by the Gettysburg Foundation, the same non-profit group that runs the museum inside the Gettysburg Battlefield visitor center and several other museums around town. This is the only museum in Gettysburg specifically designed to help children understand the battle.
The museum is located in the Rupp House, which was built in 1868 to replace a smaller brick house that the Rupp family lived in during the battle. That house was famous for having Union troops on the front porch firing through the house at Confederate troops on the back porch.
Located near the edge of the Gettysburg Battlefield National Military Park, the Children of Gettysburg 1863 Museum opened to the public in late 2021 and occupies much of the Rupp House’s first floor.
It’s worth noting up front that this is not your typical children’s museum where learning often takes a back seat to playing, and a wide variety of play spaces are available. While there are interactive elements at the museum, the main focus here is on learning about life in Gettysburg in 1863.
When arriving, young visitors are asked to pick a child who’s story they can follow through the museum. Given the museum seems largely designed for kids in lower elementary school, I was surprised there were no children younger than nine or ten for younger kids to pick from.
Whichever child you pick, there is a large book in each room that contains a couple of pages about the child’s story before, during and after the battle. While they are a little shorter than I was expecting, they do offer good information, and since it’s in a book form, you can actually read as many of the children’s stories as you’d like during your visit.
The museum can be divided into four main spaces: life in Gettysburg in 1863, preparing for the battle, surviving the battle, and the aftermath. Each of these topics has one room dedicated to it, with the largest space being the area that talks about the aftermath of the battle.
Each room has both signage and interactive elements which allow kids to both learn and have fun at the same time. It’s worth noting that while the museum specifically says that the space is designed for kindergarten through fifth grade, most of the interactive elements are definitely for younger kids, in my opinion.
That’s not to say that older elementary kids won’t have fun here, but they might not spend as much time experiencing as many of the activities as younger kids will. I felt my second-grade daughter was pretty close to the top of the age range for many of the play spaces, though some of the historic information did go over her head a bit, so older kids shouldn’t feel left out if they enjoy learning about history.
Activities in the museum that my second-grade daughter most enjoyed were the dress up spaces, the coloring sheets, and the wounded soldier mannequin that you can nurse back to health.
Overall, the Children of Gettysburg 1863 isn’t an overly large museum, and those that just read the signs could easily breeze through in about 15 minutes. On the other hand, those that also take time to experience all of the interactive elements could definitely say here 45-60 minutes or even longer (especially if your child is really into coloring).
Note that the museum itself recommends allocating 45 minutes for the space.
It’s also worth noting that because of the museum’s small size, I feel it could pretty quickly get crowded if more than a few families were here at a time. Because of this, I’d recommend visiting on a weekday outside of the busy season if possible. (We had the place to ourselves on a weekday in December.)
All that being said, please don’t take my comments in an overly negative way. The museum is very well thought out and the signage and the displays are very well done.
They also do an excellent job of discussing tough subjects like slavery and war in a way that most kids should be able to understand in an introductory way, especially for kids in the middle elementary grades.
However, it is worth knowing your kids and whether they will take the time to enjoy interacting with the spaces here or will just breeze through in just a few minutes.
Ultimately, if you have younger kids and are looking for a way to teach them more about the Civil War in a space designed for them, this is definitely a nice space to consider checking out when visiting Gettysburg.
Note: There are a handful of free parking spots for museum visitors behind the Rupp House. If you park on the street in front of the building you will have to feed the meter.
Looking for more things to do in Gettysburg? Check out Civil War Tails, the covered bridges of Adams County, and Mr. Ed’s Elephant Museum.
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