Gettysburg

With Labor Day weekend approaching, a home game versus Youngstown State bringing thousands to town for the weekend, and a glorious forecast of sun and 70's, we decided to hit the road for another Pennsylvania excursion. This time - Gettysburg 2.5 hours away.

Ann had never been, and I hadn't in probably 40 years, so it really was time for us to reacquaint ourselves with the bloody, cruel, liberating piece of our country's history that was the American Civil War. Even after 40 years I have strong memories of the beauty of the Gettysburg battlefields and the hushed witness of the silent cannons and monuments. The slaughter that occurred there is almost inconceivable now, sharpening my sense of the violence that accompanies war.

The beauty of the battlefields and monuments remains for me the same. But the visitor center that was new when I was young had since been replaced. Time marches on, unlike memories. A very nice building that echoes the local farm architecture of stone and wood. I like too how the cyclorama (the 360 degree painting of Pickett's charge completed in 1884) has been housed in a reproduction round barn - a perfect fitting of function and traditional from.

Ann made us a reservation at the Baladary Inn, a B&B a few miles from downtown, and I make reservations with Gettysbike, offering guided bicycle tours of the battlefield. That seemed like it might be a good way to experience a large park (6,000 acres) on a more human scale more similar to that of the soldiers who fought here, and without the hassles of parking and driving. And it was. Our guide possessed a true passion for the history of Gettysburg, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the battle and of the entire Civil War. He lead us between the sites of the major actions as the battle unfolded day by day, stopping to lecture for long periods, offering background, detailing troop movements, quoting participants, even impersonating officers. It was a tour de force performance. We paid $100 for a 3 hour tour and got nearly 6 hours. I can think of no better way to experience Gettysburg.

We were concerned about biking in holiday weekend traffic, but within the park it was not an issue. Many of the roads are one way, all were exceedingly well paved, and folks drive very slowly. Especially the morning after the tour when we rode the park again, we hardly saw anyone until 11 am. Downtown in the tourist zone it got pretty congested and was best avoided.

Another significant change I noticed from my childhood visit was the work the park service has been doing to return the battle fields to their appearance in 1863. I have strong memories of climbing the wooded rocks and crevices of Devil's Den imagining the horror of the close fighting, ricocheting bullets, and gruesome casualties. I was shocked to find the woods gone, as is the forest leading up Little Round Top. All historically accurate I'm sure, but strongly dissonant with my memories.

It is disturbing to weigh the costs of that war, the great emancipation that came from it, and the long, troubled road from there to where we are today. How do you balance the acute human costs of the war against the chronic costs of slavery? 600,000 killed in the Civil War against 4 million people in bondage for generations. Battlefields like this are crucial to our collective memory of the costs and causes of war, and for prodding each of us to consider what price was paid, by whom, and to what ends. Reading about it is not the same as walking the same ground, seeing the 1,400 memorials, feeling the warm sun against my living skin where so many lives were cut so horribly short.