Spent a few days at Gettysburg recently.  If you've never been, it is one of the most moving places you can visit.  Over 52,000 dead & wounded over three days (July 1-3, 1863)....hard not to feel the presence of their spirits.

 

Worth remembering what was sacrificed here and how we came so close to being a divided nation.  Keep that in mind when some of today's politicians seek to create divisions for their own political gain.

 

Everything we do to unite instead of divide honors those who bled on this battlefield.

Haven't been there since '88.. I imagine the area is choked with sprawl by now... but the remaining countryside is absolutely glorious in that area

Beautiful.

Thanks for the reminiscence! I haven't been there since 1965, when I was stationed not far away at Dover, Delaware. The photos reawaken memories of weekend road trips in a history-rich part of the country.

 

The carnage at Gettysburg was awful, and the stories of the battlefield medical facilities of the time are almost more terrifying. There were no antibiotics and no anaesthetics, and amputation without either of those was the only option for a limb shattered by large-caliber, low-velocity bullets. It's amazing that anyone ever survived after being wounded.

Evergrey.... you'll be happy to know that the sprawl of the 80's has pretty much abated and has not entered the actual battlefield.  Yeah...still a lot of tourist shops, but also some very good restaurants like the Dobbin House, which have preserved their own history relative to the battle.

 

The new Visitor Center is huge improvement over the old one...much more interactive and less clutter.

 

Rob_1412.... Standing on Littlle Round Top or at the point in the Union lines where Pickett's Charge almost penetrated, you can almost envision watching a mile long line of Confederate soldiers and officers having to cross almost a mile and a half of open fields in the face of cannon fire, aimed, rifled muskets and then canister shots at point blank range. 

 

This was my second visit to Gettysburg and I still can't help but shake my head at the futility of Pickett's Charge... or of those Alabamans who charged up Little Round Top into the guns and bayonets of the 20th Maine Infantry.  To be sure, it took courage on both sides, but the human cost (as you described) was unimagineable.

 

One cannot help but be moved by seeing this battlefield.  We took the horseback tour and I highly recommend it. Something about being on horseback at this place that makes you feel connected to it.

A truly amazing place. 

I have not been, but plan on going at some point.  I travel across PA on business, so I'm hoping one of these days I can stop.  It is crazy to think that my ONE grandfather (RIP) was born a mere 40 years after this conflict ended.

so beautiful, but it really does feel haunted around there.