Gettysburg

I decided to take the drive over to western Pennsylvania to see Gettysburg National Park.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Often referred to as the "High Water Mark of the Rebellion", Gettysburg was the war's bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties (the number includes the dead, wounded, captured and missing). It was also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address".

There were lots of tourists there and the visitor center was very large. I joined a long line to buy tickets to the movie/cyclorama, the guided tour on a bus, and a ride out to the Eisenhower retirement farm which is on the border of Gettysburg Park. Later when I inquired about the commercialization of the services, a Ranger explained that a Foundation raised the money for these facilities and the ticket money will pay the Foundation back and then it will be returned to the NPS.

The "Cyclorama" was a very popular form of entertainment in the late 1800's, both in America and Europe. These massive oil-on-canvas paintings were displayed in special auditoriums and enhanced with landscaped foregrounds with real physical objects and that is what I saw in Gettysburg. The result is a three-dimensional effect that surrounded us as the audience stood on a central platform, placing us in the center of the historic scene. This photo is the artist creating the cyclorama painting.

Here are three photos of it. The cyclorama would have made more sense to me later after touring the battlefield.

I photographed this in the museum.

Our tour guide was proud of his status of "official" tour guide which means he passed a competitive program involving test-taking. He was passionate on the subject and wanted us to understand the events that transpired over the 3-day fight.

Drawing the battle plan in the dirt.

Many people in the Park knew the story of the Gettysburg battle in minute detail. I felt as though I had stumbled into a sort of exclusive club, somewhat like my recent experience at the Stonewall Jackson Anniversary in Fredericksburg. Actually Gettysburg is gearing up for a similar 150th anniversary in July. I expect there will be thousands in attendance.

Pettigrew is my paternal grandmother's maiden name. I wonder if I'm related to this soldier from North Carolina.

North Carolina sacrifice.

Fought during the first three days of July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War having occurred at a time when the fate of the nation literally hung in the balance.

The battle brought devastation to the residents of the town of Gettysburg. Every farm field or garden was a graveyard. Churches, public buildings and even private homes were hospitals, filled with wounded soldiers. The Union medical staff that remained were strained to treat so many wounded scattered about the county. To meet the demand, Camp Letterman General Hospital was established east of Gettysburg where all of the wounded were eventually taken to before transport to permanent hospitals in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Union surgeons worked with members of the U.S Sanitary Commission and Christian Commission to treat and care for the over 20,000 injured Union and Confederate soldiers that passed through the hospital's wards, housed under large tents.

Monument of Gen. Warren looking over the battlefield from Little Round Top.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Where the Gettysburg Address took place.