Gettysburg (27/9)

After two days of helping Jen with her floors, our first adventure out was to go to Gettysburg. Will was able to join us along with his aunt and uncle, John and Sally. I don't think I have ever been in one area where there are so many monuments. It was absolutely incredible to see. We had no idea, but turns out we were there for the grand opening weekend of the brand new, multimillion dollar visitors' center. There were tons of Scout troops up touring the area, which would actually be pretty incredible to do.

It's a sad thing to admit, but truly, other than Lincoln's address there I really didn't know/remember much about this battle. I learned it was a three day battle on 1, 2, and 3 July and it was an absolute blood bath. I don't remember the actual number, but I do remember that it basically boils down to one-third of the troops were killed. That's so not good. It's incredible what I don't know. The other thing was that for some reason in my mind I had that Lincoln did his famous address immediately after the batter and he didn't come out to do that, when they were dedicating the land for a cemetery. That was on 19 November. The other thing I did not know (one of many obviously) was that there was, incredibly, only one civilian loss and it was a female. Mary Virginia "Jennie" Wade was baking bread when she was killed by a stray bullet that came into her home. For the grand opening they had some incredibly music. Well, I'm sure it was all incredible, we only stayed to listen to this one. The first song we heard them play was to the same tune as "If You Could Hie to Kolob." That was a little bit interesting.

Their instruments were accurate for the time. That's pretty cool to me.

And the monuments begin. Again, I'll try to label as well as I can, but right now I'm off to a bad start, since I already can't tell you for sure which one this is.

The very cool red barn. It's part of their history and was used in the battle. The tour used it as an example of brother against brother in this battle. It told a story of two immigrant brothers who really hadn't seen each other since leaving their home. One was captured and when they were brought in front of their captors, there was a family reunion between these brothers. I kept waiting for them to say that there was a firing squad type deal where one brother ended up having to shoot the other, but was actually relieved this wasn't part of this story.

North Carolina Memorial. Several stated had their memorials. The very coolest ones to me, although I wasn't able to actually get pictures of them (we needed to get back to see the film) were the Louisiana and Mississippi ones. They were amazing.

An up close picture of their faces. For some reason, I am always fascinated by the up close shots of the faces. The emotions are always so incredible.

Virginia State Memorial. That would be Robert E. Lee on the top with his trusted horse.

The troops on the bottom of the Virginia Memorial. When look really close the rider on the horse looks like a kid whose maybe fifteen tops. I don't know how he got the horse, but I suppose there is some reality, unfortunately, to the youth aspect of things.

Jen and Will.

My turn. Same place.

Pennsylvania Memorial. Here sits 1,252 tons of granite. And it looks incredible.

Some more fabulous monuments. I'm not entirely sure which ones these are.

Over at Soldier's Cemetery, they put up this monument where they believed Lincoln delivered his address, only to discover a while later that he actually delivered it at another location further into the cemetery.

This monument is also at the cemetery.

I don't know why it struck me. But if you look closely at this guy, he's missing one of his fingers. Maybe it's because usually there is such care to keep everything perfect in monuments and memorials.

The following were markers put along the pathway. I don't know if it's supposed to be a running poem ,or who wrote it, but it's pretty neat to read it all as a single poem.

Website: www.nps.gov/gett