Visiting Gettysburg Battlefield

 Story and photos
by Kathleen Walls

Gettysburg is possibly the most important Civil War battle because it was a major turning point in the war. It ended Confederate General Robert E. Lee's hope of an invasion of the North, with his troops suffering casualties. It, along with the Union victory at Vicksburg the same month, boosted Union morale, and was a significant factor in President Lincoln winning his second term. Gettysburg is where any history lover needs to visit.

I had researched a lot of Civil War history when writing my War in the West series and especially Vicksburg for the second book in the series, Under a Black Flag, but not so much Gettysburg, so I learned a lot on my trip there.

Since the battlefield ranges over 17.75 square miles, and Gettysburg National Military Park is about 6,000 acres and has over 1400 monuments, markers and plaques, it's impossible to see it all in one visit. Things are always changing as new items are still being unearthed. Ranger Jason told us, "There's a piece of unexploded ordnance that was found and lots of other interesting pieces that were found as well."

The Gettysburg Battlefield Visitor Center

Just outside the Visitor Center we were greated by a staute of Abraham Lincoln sitting on a bench. The center houses many facilities telling about the battle, and there are exhibits on the wall. A great place to start your tour is the film "A New Birth of Freedom," which gives an overview of the battlefield.

At the park museum, there's a timeline of the battle and lots of information. The museum is divided into multiple galleries telling not only about the Battle of Gettysburg, but John Brown's raid, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," and some other battles. One exhibit shows what a soldier's life was like with a tent and the things he would have had with him.

Another exhibit tells about Lincoln's winning the election. There are some showing earlier battles and another called "Voices of the Confederacy." There's an exhibit about Eisenhower, who retired to Gettysburg after his presidency.

Do not miss the Cyclorama, created in 1884 by French artist Paul Philippoteaux. It's a 360-degree hand-painted canvas depicting Pickett's Charge that is longer than a football field and taller than a four-story building. The cyclorama, which surrounds you and is active. You see and hear the cannon firing, see the smoke and soldiers that seem to move as the battle occurs. The background shows the area portrayed realistically. There's Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and key locations of the battle.

A new activity in the Visitor Center is a virtual reality exhibit, Ticket to the Past, that takes you to 1863, where you view through the eyes of one of three people: Cornelia Hancock, Eli Blanchard, or Basil Biggs as they arrive for Lincoln's Gettysburg address at Gettysburg's historic railroad station.

Gettysburg Battlefield Carriage Tour

We toured the park in a Victorian Carriage Company horse-drawn carriage tour with Judy Morley, a Gettysburg licensed battlefield guide. Judy gave us a good overall picture, and the carriage ride had a historical feel.

On the way to the battlefield, Judy gave us a lot of background leading up to this battle. "The North had more industrial capability, more railroads, more men, more money, more machinery. Despite that, the South kept winning. Robert E. Lee had his two greatest victories in the ten months right before the Battle of Gettysburg. In December 1862 and then in May 1863, Robert E. Lee had won the Battles of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Chancellorsville. And these were won against all odds, he did crazy, against-the-textbook maneuvers and still won."

She told us why Gettysburg was so important to the South. "In June of 1863, Robert E. Lee has a problem. That 100 miles between Washington D.C. and Richmond, Virginia is picked clean. There's been two years of war. The two armies together numbered about 165,000 people. And if you had those two armies together, that would be the fourth-largest city in the United States at the time. Here you are in this rural agrarian area, and you've got 165,000 people trying to eat off the land. And so farmers couldn't grow crops. No livestock were left. Everything was picked over.

"So in June 1863, Robert E. Lee comes up with this plan to invade the North. And he wants to do three things. He wants to give that 100 miles between D.C. and Richmond time to heal and grow some crops and get the land to come back and just allow some food to grow in that area again. He also related, he wants to come into Pennsylvania, which hasn't had all these years of war, and raid it, get crops, get livestock, get supplies, famously, supposedly get shoes and all of these other things that the South was chronically low on. And then his third goal was to take advantage of the anti-war sentiment that was going on in the North. You know, the North was not unanimously for the Union. There were a lot of dissenters in the North who were ready to just negotiate a peace and let the Confederacy go. And Robert E. Lee knew that. And so he wanted to leverage that thinking that if he scored this huge victory on Northern soil that the peace movement in the North might win at the polls and just negotiate a settlement and let the South go.”

She told us the battle began on July first, 1863, and ran through the third. As we rode through, she explained the skirmishes that occurred. The cannons on the battlefield today are placed to show where cannons actually were.

Gettysburg Battlefield Monuments

The first monument we reached was the obelisk dedicated to John Reynolds, the first and highest-ranking officer killed in the first 30 minutes of the battle. He arrived here, the battle started about 10 o'clock in the morning. By 1030, John Reynolds is leading from the front, urging his men into the woods, and he is shot in the back of the head and killed.

We passed McPherson's Ridge. The house burned down, but the barn remains. It was owned by Edward McPherson. He wasn't living there at the time; he was renting it out to another family. McPherson had been asked by Abraham Lincoln to head up this new department in Washington, DC, that was raising revenue for the war. We know it today as the IRS.

The Eternal Flame at the top of a hill burns at the Eternal Life Peace Memorial. It was dedicated on the 75th anniversary of the battle. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the president then, and there were still 18 veterans from the battle still alive.

The bottom of the monument is granite from Maine, and the top is limestone from Alabama. Its inscription reads, "Peace, eternal, and a nation united." The eternal flame burns at the top. An interesting fact, 100 years after the battle in March 1963, John and Jacqueline Kennedy came to Gettysburg, and they saw the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. Jacqueline Kennedy was very impressed by the memorial. The Park Service invited President Kennedy to speak on November 19th, 1963 for the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but he declined because he had to be in Dallas that week. What happened in Dallas that week changed history again. Instead of coming to Gettysburg, he went to Dallas, where he ended up being assassinated.

Some letters and stories say that Jacqueline Kennedy placed an eternal flame on JFK's grave because she remembered what she had seen here at the eternal flame monument.

Another moving monument is the 11th Pennsylvania Monument with a bronze likeness of Sallie, their Staffordshire terrier mascot. During the battle, the 11^th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry then had to retreat, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. Sallie was separated from the unit and three days later found guarding the wounded soldiers. She is one of only two dogs memorialized at the battlefield park.

She continued to serve with the 11th PA for two more years until she was killed by a bullet at the Battle of Hatcher's Run in February 1865. When the surviving veterans dedicated a monument to the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry at Gettysburg in 1890, they had a sculpture of Sallie placed on the monument.

As we left the park, we passed a little stone cottage with a white picket fence that was General Lee's headquarters at the end of the first day. It was occupied at the time of the battle by a widow named Mary Thompson. She stayed there in her home the entire time.

She said she "never cooked a meal for no rebel." However, somebody cooked there. Her kitchen was used by Lee's orderly.

This is just a touch of what it's like touring the battlefield. Judy gave us a lot of the battle information as we drove by. For a step back in history, go see it for yourself.

Public Disclosure Please Read FTC has a law requiring web sites to let their readers know if any of the stories are  'sponsored' or compensated. We also are to let readers know if any of our links are ads. Most are not. They are just a way to direct you  to more information about the article where the link is placed. We have several ads on our pages.  They are clearly marked as ads. I think readers are smart enough to know an ad when they see one but to obey the letter of the law, I am putting this statement here to make sure everyone understands. American Roads and Global Highways may contain affiliate links or ads. Further, as their bios show, most of the feature writers are professional travel writers. As such we are frequently invited on press trips, also called fam trips. On these trips most of our lodging, dining, admissions fees and often plane fare are covered by the city or firm hosting the trip. It is an opportunity to visit places we might not otherwise be able to visit. However, no one tells us what to write about those places. All opinions are 100% those of the author of that feature column.