We arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania about noon on Sunday. We are staying at the Artillery Ridge RV Park which is a Passport America park and very nice. We are down by the horse corral which is providing much entertainment for McKenzie. She thinks she's found a whole new breed of dog, and boy are they ever big! Actually she's done quite well with them except for the mule - she just doesn't like him at all. The temperature is warm, in the 90's and they desperately need rain here.
We settled in on Sunday and prepared to spend Monday at the Gettysburg National Military Park which includes the battlefield and cemetery. Little did we know that the park we were staying at houses the largest military diorama in the the U.S. The battle is laid out in minature scale and includes 20,000 soldiers, all hand painted with almost a thousand cannons and horses. The project took a year to realize. It took two more years to complete the second and third days of battle. The sound and light show depicts rifle and cannon fire in a dramatic thirty minute narrative describing the battle and its importance in the Civil War.
So, we were a little prepared for what we would see at the actual park, but we were amazed at how large the actual battlefield was. We decided the best way to approach something of this magnitude was to attend the tours given by the rangers explaining about each of the three days of battle. Each tour lasted approximately an hour and we were given a wealth of information which I will try to share with you.
On June 3, 1863, a month after his dramatic victory at Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee began marching his Army of Northern Virginia westward from its camps around Fredericksburg, VA. Once thru the gaps of theBlue Ridge, the Southerners trudged northward into Maryland and Pennsylvania. They were followed by the Union Army of the Potomac under Major General Joseph Hooker, but Lee, whose cavalry under Major General J.E.B. Stuart was absent on a brash raid around the Federal forces, had no way of knowing his adversary's whereabouts.
The two armies touched by chance at Gettysburg on June 30. The main battle opened on July 1 with Confederates attacking Union troops on McPherson Ridge west of town. Though outnumbered, the Federal forces held their position until afternoon, when they were finally overpowered and driven back to Cemetery Hill south of town. The Northerners labored long into the night over their defenses while the bulk of the Union army arrived and took up positions.
On July 2, the second day of the battle, the battlelines were drawn up in two sweeping arcs. The main portions of both armies were nearly one mile apart on parallel ridges: Union forces on Cemetery Ridge, Confederate forces on Seminary Ridge to the west. Lee ordered an attack against both Union flanks. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's thrust on the Federal left turned the base of Little Round Top into a shambles, left the Wheatfield strewn with dead and wounded, and overran the Peach Orchard. Farther north, Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell's evening attack on the Federal right at East Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, though momentarily sucessful, could not be exploited to Confererate advantage.
On July 3, Lee's artillery opened a two-hour bombardment of the Federal lines on Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill. This for a time engaged the massed guns of both sides in a thundering duel for supremacy, but did little to soften up the Union defensive position. Then, in an attempt to recapture the partial success of the previous day, some 12,000 Confederates advanced across open fields toward the Federal center in an attack known as "Pickett's Charge" More than 5,000 soldiers became casualties in one hour.
With the repulse of Pikett's Charge, the Battle of Gettysburg was over. The Confederate army that staggered back into Virginia was physically and spiritually exhausted. Never again would Lee attempt an offensive operation of such magnitude. And Meade, though criticized for not pursuing Lee's troops, would forever be remembered as the man who won the battle that has come to be known as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy".
We viewed the Eternal Light Peace memorial where on the first day of battle, Gen. Robert E. Rode's Confederates attacked from the hill, threatening Union forces on McPherson and Oak ridges. Seventy five years later, veterans of the Union and Confederate armies gathered for their last great reunion. All Civil War Veterans were invited with expenses paid and nearly 2,000 attended. The majority were in their 90's and many were over 100. On the warm evening of Sunday, July 3, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the dedication speech to a crowd estimated at 200,000. The monument is built of Alabama limestone and Maine granite and is topped by a natural gas torch to be lit eternally to symbolize the unity of the United States.
We decided to take a driving tour just about sunset after having spent most of the day walking the park. It just made you feel so small to see everything that had taken place on this soil. One of the sites we stopped to look at was Little Round Top which was a hill that the Union troops wanted to defend. Chief Engineer Warren had determined there were Confederates all around the hill but no Union soldiers to defend it. He quickly dispatched troops to defend it and fight the oncoming Confederates which saved the day for the Union.
In addition to the battlefield, the national cemetery is located within the park. When the armies marched away from Gettysburg they left behind a community in shambles and more than 51,000 killed, wounded, and missing soldiers. Wounded and dying were crowded into nearly every building. Most of the dead lay in hastily dug and inadequate graves, some had not been buried at all. This situation so distressed Pennsylvania's governor, Andrew Curtin, that he commissioned a local attorney to purchase land for a proper burial ground for Union soldiers. Within four months of the battle, reinterment began on 17 acres that became Gettysburg National Cemetery. The remains of 3,320 Confederate soldiers were removed from the battlefield to cemeteries in the South.
The cemetery was dedicated on Novemer 19, 1863. The principal speaker, Edward Everett, delivered a two hour oration. He was followed by President Abraham Lincoln who had been asked to make "a few appropriate remarks". Lincoln's speech, the Gettysburg Address, which contains 272 words and took about two minutes to deliver is considered a masterpiece of the English language. It transformed Gettysburg from a scene of carnage into a symbol, giving meaning to the sacrifice of the dead and inspiration to the living. The New York monument was erected on the spot where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address.
Well, we've had another full day of history about the Civil War. Tomorrow will be a day to see a couple of different types of museums.
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