Gettysburg National Military Park

August 24, 2008

 

Gettysburg National Military Park has to be experienced. There's much more than I could cover in a sweltering August day, or probably several days if I tried.

 

It's one thing to read the statistics in a history book, and quite another to walk there and see the many monuments placed years after the battle, testifying to the lasting impact that it had on states and communities and families who suffered the loss of loved ones and probably often, impoverishment from the loss of fathers and husbands who were breadwinners.

 

Gettysburg cost the nation 51,000 killed and wounded, some lives snuffed out in an instant and some fading slowly in agony, pinned beneath the weight of the corpses of their friends and comrades. Battlefield medicine often consisted of wholesale amputations without anaesthetic. The statistics cite many "missing" too. I wonder how many of those were blown to bits and made unrecognizable by canister shot at close range, and how many, having survived a first charge or cannonade, said "**** this!" and quietly slipped away to walk home or to disappear into the countryside.

 

It was a war where traditional military tactics involving orderly advances and open-field charges of massed troops met head-on with new weaponry designed to cut huge swaths from those ranks. As a kid I used to marvel at the artillery and other weapons as artifacts. Now when I look at them, I can only see them in terms of the ghastly carnage they were created to produce.

 

The sights and signs are pretty much self-explanatory. This is a very small sampling of what's there. I'll shut up now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Youth group touring the battlefield. I gave one of the leaders a business card and hope he contacts me so I can send them some print files.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pennsylvania Memorial on the left

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow.

Very sobering. Thanks Rob.

 

On one of the statues, it was written that Luther said "Faith (is) greater than learning". I believe that's called "blind faith" and I couldn't disagree more with it. It's that kind of faith that leads to slaughters like Gettysburg.

 

And this is one of the most handsome, cozy looking homes I've ever seen:

 

 

edit: 10/12/2008 by rob_1412 fixed broken img link

On one of the statues, it was written that Luther said "Faith (is) greater than learning". I believe that's called "blind faith" and I couldn't disagree more with it. It's that kind of faith that leads to slaughters like Gettysburg.

 

I don't know the greater context of that quote, but for some folks it's not a great leap from that statement to this kind of thinking:

"Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out."

Quite the amazing place.  One of the things that i found very interesting when i was there last was a display they had set up to warn of the consequences of looting.  Its mind boggling to consider the shear number of artifacts still strewn about the battlefield, and amateur archeology is not something officials look to kindly on.

Great stuff... been 20 years since I've been there... but hopefully I'll visit beautiful Adams County again