We then began our tour of the battleground, both on foot and in the car (sometimes, even Gary and I know our limits.)
Here are the battle lines: the Union in blue is on Cemetery Ridge while the Confederates in red are on Seminary Ridge. Note how the Confederates are on the north side of the field and the Union is on the south. Confusing.
You’ll want to see the field where Pickett’s Charge took place. Look up at the Union lines of artillery and soldiers on the hill above you. Imagine being one of 12,000 marching across that field into the volcano of fire from all those guns. The smoke from those guns was so thick that you couldn’t even see the man next to you. Then imagine being one of 6,000 retreating back to the Confederate lines. Yes, they lost 1 out of every 2 who started the charge. At the end, Lee applogized to his soldiers for ordering this charge.
Or turn it around, imagine being on top of Cemetery Ridge on the Union lines and seeing 12,000 Confederate soldiers marching towards you. The march slowly, then at a double-step, then with the Rebel yell in their throats, they come on. But the Union rifles and artillery mow them down like a scythe in a wheatfield.
Visit Little Round Top and peer into the Devil’s Den. Imagine trying to attack those rocks above you with all the Union sharpshooters and artillery firing down on you. Imagine the wounded dragging their bodies to Plum Run, a small stream nearby which turned into ‘Bloody Run’.
Then head on over to Culp’s Hill where the Union was dug into trenches dug around the hill. Imagine being in your trenches at Culp’s Hill, being called to Little Round Top to fill in the lines for the Confederate attack and then, at the end of the day, heading back to your trenches only to find Confederates have overrun them and now you’ve got to get them out. Here’s their monument - the New York companies were proud of their trenches and wanted them in their monument.
There are 1320 monuments and 410 cannons spread out over the battlefield. Here’s General Hancock on Little Round Top, surveying the area before him, exposing himself to Confederate sniper fire in the process. He noticed that the Union line was - not there - and he called in reinforcements, saving the Union position and the whole line from being rolled up.
The National Park Service has taken great pains to restore the battlefield to how it looked in 1863. The fences, the rock walls, the buildings, the the fields, the forests and the rocky out croppings are pretty much as they were before the battle.
Here’s Meade. Poor guy, He got the command 3 days before Gettysburg, beat Lee such that Lee had to retreat, and, because he did not push his exhausted troops to follow Lee to deal the final blow, he was sacked by Lincoln.
And, on the opposite side of the field is the Virginia monument with Lee at the top and the Virginians arrayed in front.
And, then there’s the National Cemetery where Lincoln spoke his immortal 10 sentences, his Gettysburg address. The walkway is lined with metal plaques with lines from Theodore O’Hara’s ‘Bivouac of the Dead.’
‘The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo,
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents to spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.’
Each state has its section in the cemetery. All graves, whether of officer or enlisted man, are the same - except the grave for those who were unidentified - like this one for New York or this one from Maine. Each state has one of these markers.
Gary and I had several questions about the cemetery.
Who buried all the dead? Ultimately it became the job of the citizens of Gettysburg to bury the dead. Over 7000 dead were scattered about the battlefield - and, remember, it was a hot July. Most of the dead had been placed in very shallow graves which rain had uncovered. In less than 2 months, all the Union dead were recovered and reburied in the National Cemetery.
Where are the Confederate soldiers buried? They had to wait for 9 more years before they were reinterred in graves in the South and then through the efforts of Southern Women’s associations. A daunting task since graves were in terrible condition and grave markers had been lost and not maintained by the farmers who owned the land.
Why weren’t they buried at Gettysburg? Well, as Lincoln said this cemetery was ‘a final resting place for those who here gave their lies that that nation might live.’
‘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 can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not 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.’
Abraham Lincoln
Finally: are there still bodies in the fields that have not been found? Absolutely. In fact, one body was found in 1995, probably a Mississippi soldier fighting in what is called the Railroad Cut. Other bodies have been found throughout the 1900’s and there are probably more still to be found.
As we walked the battlefield, we saw the houses of the farmers who lived and worked the fields in Gettysburg. You can see where artillery hit this barn. When the owners returned, they found dead horses surrounding their home.
At the Pennsylvania monument, we found these two marching up the steps.
A hallowed place to walk.
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