Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Gettysburg - Day 1

We get up early and head into the Visitor's Center

 It's a new visitor center - built in 2008
 Gary stops and asks Abe what we should see while in town.
 Tucson can't go inside but he is allowed to walk the trails in the Battlefield so we head towards the Cemetery. 


General Meade's  Headquarters
View into the Cemetery - Tucson isn't allowed in.
Three days of fighting at Gettysburg took a tremendous toll on both sides, 10,000 soldiers killed or mortally wounded, 30,000 injured, and 10,000 captured or missing.  After the battle, bodies were scattered all over the farmlands. Burial started quickly because of the fear of epidemic.  They were hastily buried in shallow graves near where they lay,  identified only by pencil on wood boards.


The boys scope out the Battlefield
Pettigrew was a Confederate General leading one of three divisions in the disastrous assault better known as Pickett's Charge
It is also the high-water mark, marking the farthest point reached by Confederate forces during Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863
 The monument is a bronze book opened to two pages which list the units of both sides that took part in Longstreet’s Assault on July 3, 1863

 View of the Peach Orchard from the 59th NY Infantry Memorial

 We drop Tucson at the Truck and tour the Cemetery
 It is situated in an area encompassing the hill from which the Union center drove back Pickett’s Charge.   It was purchased by the State and the reburial process started 4 months after the battle on October 27, 1863.  There are thousands of markers with just numbers - no names.  It is humbling.



 It is a beautiful cemetery commemorating those that gave their lives in a great tragedy
 This memorial was placed near where Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address - one in which he said:
  "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here." 











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