Gettysburg

Just to be upfront, this is a very long post.

A few Saturdays ago T and I visited Gettysburg.  It's only about two hours away from D.C.!  How did we not know this sooner?!  If you visit D.C. for four or more days, definitely take a day (really, it will take all day) to visit Gettysburg.  It's worth it.  If you're really into Civil War stuff, plan on two days in Gettysburg.

Our drive to Gettysburg started out very foggy.  That should be the Potomac River 15 feet directly behind me, but it was so foggy you couldn't see it!

We started our visit by stopping at the Visitor's Center.  We skipped the cyclorama painting, the film, and the museum mostly because they all cost money and those things together take two hours and our visit lasted all day as it was! 

T with Lincoln.  (Our guidebook came with augmented reality content for iPhones.  Basically you download an app then if you act like you are going to take a photo of a certain site, a historical figure associated with that site comes into frame and you can resize and move them to appear in your photo.)

I didn't realize how huge area wise the Battle of Gettysburg was (about 25 square miles!).  Considering how big the area is there are several different touring options.  You can get a free map at the visitors center and follow the auto tour route, buy tickets for a bus tour with narration, buy any number of CD audio tours, or hire a licensed battlefield guide who will drive your car for a two hour tour.

T and I chose to buy an audio tour (Gettysburg Field Guide second edition narrated by Wayne Motts put out by TravelBrains) because it seemed to be the best combination of information, flexibility,  and affordability.  The audio tour we bought has a lot of human interest type stories in addition to facts and mostly follows the auto tour route.  The CD tells you when to listen; sometimes while you are driving to the next location and sometimes while you are parked at a location.  The CD came with a guide book that has battle maps that were pretty helpful because there was a lot going on in the Battle of Gettysburg.  The guide book has almost everything word for word as the CD (deaf people like history, too!).  If you're going to visit let us know and we'll loan you our CD and guide book!

The leaves were starting to turn in Gettysburg!

If we visited again with more than just the two of us I think we would hire the guide.  It's strange that the guide drives your car but it makes sense because they know where everything is.  Anyway, at several places we overheard the licensed guides talking and they were fantastically knowledgeable and friendly.

Before we left the visitor's center we picked up a list of free guided tours and times.  Since our audio tour doesn't cover the Soldier's Cemetery, we planned to go on that free tour (about 45 minutes long) in the middle of the day.

This was at our first stop, McPherson Ridge.  Don't worry, I didn't really know any of the specifics of the Battle of Gettysburg before this and it is still very confusing to try to keep everything straight. To make things even more confusing, there are monuments and memorial plaques literally every 50 feet.  If you stopped at every monument or plaque, it would take days.  This is a pretty typical looking monument.

Here's the up close.

And even closer up close because the numbers blow my mind.  The 1st Brigade started with 21 officers and 445 men.  Total they lost 15 officers and 322 men.  That's 75 percent.  Gettysburg is a very sobering place.

After our first stop we zipped over to the Soldier's Cemetery for the tour.  As always, the National Park Rangers are excellent tour givers.  I highly recommend taking one of the tours.  The Cemetery was supposed to be for Union soldiers only, but a couple of Johnny Rebs ended up in it by accident.  The gravestones are arranged in big arcs.  The arcs are arranged by state and regiment and each gravestone has as much information is known about each soldier.  Some are blank, some just have a regiment number, some just have ranks, and some have names.

This cemetery is where President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address.  There is a monument to that speech in the cemetery.  It's the only monument in the world dedicated to a speech.

This is a memorial for the 1st Minnesota.  The 262 men of the 1st Minnesota rushed 1,700 Alabama soldiers on Cemetery Ridge.  Within 15 minutes 82 percent of the regiment was killed, wounded, or captured.   Their charge gave just enough time to rush reinforcements in and hold the Union line.

The quotes on either side of the monument "All time is the millennium of their glory" and "These dead shall not have died in vain."

 The Gettysburg countryside is so picturesque. 

T with one of the cannons at the Eternal Light Peace Memorial.  The Memorial was dedicated in 1938 by FDR on the 75th anniversary of the battle.  About 1,800 Civil War Veterans were present that day, all in their 90's. Pretty sure this is where they got the idea for the eternal flame for JFK.

Gettysburg is lovely country.  This is the McClean house and barn.

The North Carolina Memorial.  You can see the wounded officer pointing the way, the color bearer in the back, a battlefield rookie, an old veteran saying words of encouragement into the ear of the rookie, and a battle hardened soldier leading the way. (That's a description we overheard one of the the licensed field guides giving, otherwise I would have no clue.)

Virginia's Memorial with General Lee and his horse Traveler on top.  It's really strange for me to think of Virginia as being a southern state.

With General Lee in front of the Virginia monument.

Louisiana Memorial.  I really had no idea what was going on here, but it's kind of out there so it fits Louisiana.  Later I read in the guide book that there is a fallen artilleryman and the "Spirit of the Confederacy" is rising over him.

Gettysburg is just so lovely in the fall time.

On Little Round Top looking over the Slaughter Pen towards Devil's Den.  Little Round Top is where 350 men of the 20th Maine held off two regiments from Alabama.  If the 20th Maine had lost Little Round Top, most historians agree that the Union would have lost the Battle of Gettysburg.

At the bottom of Little Round Top with Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, leader of the 20th Maine.

With Lee at Devil's Den.  Before they charged the hill, Confederate sharpshooters hid behind these boulders firing at Union soldiers on Little Round Top.  The area between Devil's Den and Little Round Top is known as The Slaughter Pen for obvious reasons.  This location was supposed to have a sharpshooter show up, but Lee did instead.  So I took another photo with Lee.

The Pennsylvania Memorial.  These bronze tablets go around the entire monument and hold the names of every Pennsylvania soldier who fought at Gettysburg.

T looking good at the top of the Pennsylvania Memorial.

How wonderful is it that the men of Pennsylvania wanted to honor the women?  Pretty wonderful.

I think it is interesting that in the North the Civil War was often referred to as "The War of the Rebellion" and in the South it was often called "The War of Northern Aggression."

This is a New York monument.  If you see a monument that is bigger or unusual looking, odds are that it is a New York monument.  I think they have more monuments than any other state.

The one mile field that the Confederates ran through during Pickett's Charge.  They were trying to reach the stone wall in the foreground.  And they did for just a moment before they were pushed into retreat by Union forces, ending the Battle of Gettysburg.

Gettysburg is wonderful and sad.  It is full of amazing stories of brave soldiers on both sides and a heavy reminder of the price of war. 


If you visit (and really, you SHOULD visit), don't go in summer - it will be sweltering hot and you do get out of the car quite often to check out memorials and read plaques.  Start by visiting the visitor's center when it opens and picking up the list of free guided tours at the info desk.  Then take the audio tour (stopping at whatever point to go to the cemetery tour then get back on track with the audio tour).  T and I ate in town, but it was kind of a hassle because none of the tour stops are in town and parking in town is hard to find, even in the fall.  I would bring a picnic and eat it at one of the stops (we saw a ton of people doing this and wished we had planned ahead).

Gettysburg is one of the places I really want to visit again.