Gettysburg

Today we went to visit Gettysburg. Its a place we both had wanted to visit but just had never taken the time. As it turns out, Gettysburg is only about 85 miles away from our house - so we just took off this morning and headed north. There were lots of cannons around. I can't imagine dragging those heavy things for miles and miles like they did.
All along the 18 mile tour route were monuments to different battles and different army batallions as well as honoring the states that sent troops. They were very pretty.
I don't remember who this guy on the horse was - it was just one of the great monuments along the way.

The battlefields were not just flat. There were lots of rocks and several tall hills that they had to maneuver around. This is a picture of one of the hills that was a prize possession in the battle because you could see the entire battleground.

If you look closely below the two diamonds, you can see a cannonball hole. It was never repaird on this barn because the owners wanted to remember the men who fought so hard.
This is the view from the top of the hill that overlooks the battlefield. It was all a very impressive sight. I loved the monuments. Most of all, I was very impressed that the battle was so well fought, given that they did not have today's modern technology. How did they know where everyone was and how did they communicate so well given their circumstances.

The battle was not long - it took only three days in July of 1863. The Union had 93,921 troops and the Confederates had 71,699 men. I am simply amazed by that fact. I had no idea there were so many men involved. There was a total of 23,000 some odd casualities on each side with 3,155 killed on the Union and 4,708 killed on the Confederate side.

In the end, I read Lincoln's Gettysburg address again - and it had a little more meaning this time.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

Some things don't change much, do they.