Gettysburg, Pa visit

[98Hardtop]

Definitely a good weekend trip if you are into history and civil war stuff.

We went to visit the wifeys parents this weekend who live right next to the Battlefield memorials and such. As many times as we have gone to visit them, we really never visited the battlefields, but just drove by them going to the store, etc.

It was a nice day, except on top of Little Round Top where the winds were atleast 30mph plus.

One of the Eisenhower Estates that is next to her parents. One of the Park Rangers lives there and continues to operate the place and raise the animals as did the President did when he lived there.


Wifey looking out over the battlefield and other tourist from atop of LRT


NC Soldiers memorial




The rest of the Album
Gettysburg, Pa album | Blackfang | Fotki.com

[SMWS6TA]

I used to hike there and Valley Forge in the 80's when I was in Boy Scouts. Some beautiful scenery.

[pajeff02]

Sorry to say that I have never visited the park. It's on my list of things I need to do though -- thanks for sharing!

[98Hardtop]

I have been to Valley Forge when I was kid.

[KahanaReef]

I've always wanted to visit. The last time I was out in Upstate NY to visit my parents, my Dad wanted to take me, but, he became ill and we never made it.

One day I'll make it though Thanks for sharing.

[1MileCrash]

we went to gettysburg back in 2007 and it was incredible. i tell everyone that i meet that if they ever go out there to spend the little bit of extra cash...like $50...and hire one of the battlefield tour guides to drive your car around for you and show you the battlefield. i feel that we were lucky as we got a gentleman named Howard Calp to drive us around and it was incredible. he took the time to ask us where we were from and he tailored our tour to us by showing us the monuments for our respective states and making sure to include the locations and units and outcomes of the battles of those units.

truly a humbling experience and i have to get back out there sometime over the 1-4 July dates to see the reenactments.

[flat-top]

Good ghost hunting also.

[98Hardtop]

Yeah the 4th of July is pretty busy and exciting there. We usually go there with her sister and her husband for the 4th. They even have people dressed up in civil war era clothing on display and such in the town.

[Thrilla]

Great pics, and even better you got the pic of the NC memorial. I hope they told you our boys surpasses the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" on the 3rd day!


Good pic w the 3 in Ordanance Rifle as well!

[Nhra Firebird]

I live 30 minutes from gettysburg and have never been on the battlefields. I have been by the town many times but have never stopped

[mark21742]

Nhra, where are you at? I'm about 30-40 minutes from Gettysburg too, been there a lot, if you get a chance hit one of the ghost tours a,d the local pubs

[bills98ta]

I still can't believe they blew up the tower...

[Z28Thunder]

Went to Gettysburg many years ago. My A school (training for my MOS in the Marines) was at Lakehurst Naval Air station (site of the Hindenburg disaster). While at Lakehurst I went to Gettysburg,DC,NY and several other places.. Your pictures make me want to go back...

[ss~zoso~ss]

what was it like 13000 dead in that battle?

[98Hardtop]

More like 7-8,000 dead.

[SMWS6TA]

Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.

After his success at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Lee led his army through the Shenandoah Valley to begin his second invasion of the North—the Gettysburg Campaign. He intended to move the focus of the summer campaign from war-ravaged northern Virginia and hoped to influence Northern politicians to give up their prosecution of the war by penetrating as far as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or even Philadelphia. Prodded by President Abraham Lincoln, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker moved his army in pursuit, but was relieved just three days before the battle and replaced by Meade.

The two armies began to collide at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there. Low ridges to the northwest of town were defended initially by a Union cavalry division, which was soon reinforced with two corps of Union infantry. However, two large Confederate corps assaulted them from the northwest and north, collapsing the hastily developed Union lines, sending the defenders retreating through the streets of town to the hills just to the south.

On the second day of battle, most of both armies had assembled. The Union line was laid out in a defensive formation resembling a fishhook. Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union left flank, and fierce fighting raged at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. On the Union right, demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. All across the battlefield, despite significant losses, the Union defenders held their lines.

On the third day of battle, July 3, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south, but the main event was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,500 Confederates against the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge, known as Pickett's Charge. The charge was repulsed by Union rifle and artillery fire, at great losses to the Confederate army. Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia. Between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were casualties in the three-day battle. That November, President Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.

Union casualties were 23,055 (3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing), while Confederate casualties are more difficult to estimate. Many authors cite about 28,000 overall casualties, but Busey and Martin's definitive 2005 work, Regimental Strengths and Losses, documents 23,231 (4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing). Nearly a third of Lee's general officers were killed, wounded, or captured. The casualties for both sides during the entire campaign were 57,225.[58] Bruce Catton wrote, "The town of Gettysburg looked as if some universal moving day had been interrupted by catastrophe." But there was only one documented civilian death during the battle: Ginnie Wade (also widely known as Jennie), 20 years old, was shot by a stray bullet that passed through her kitchen in town while she was making bread.

Nearly 8,000 had been killed outright; these bodies, lying in the hot summer sun, needed to be buried quickly. Over 3,000 horse carcasses were burned in a series of piles south of town; townsfolk became violently ill from the stench.

[Nhra Firebird]

Nhra, where are you at? I'm about 30-40 minutes from Gettysburg too, been there a lot, if you get a chance hit one of the ghost tours a,d the local pubs

york

[mark21742]

york

Oh ok, your on the other side, thought you might be a neighbor lol