10 Reasons To Visit Gettysburg

I am participating in 31 Days to a Better Blog at Yeah Write. Today's  challenge is to write a list post. Since this weekend is the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg, I wanted to look at one of our country's finest historical attractions and why it is such a great place to visit.

1.)  It's family friendly. The various museums, tours and exhibits make it easy for kids to understand the battle. 

2.) Its one of the best preserved battle sites in the country, nearly 6000 acres of  land that is kept as close as possible to the way it was in July of 1863.

3.) The town itself is fun and quirky, with lots of interesting little museums and stores.

 4.) It's easy to get around.  You can walk, take a guided tour, or ride around on the free public transit.  You can also purchase a recorded tour of the battlefield that will guide you in your own car. There are even Segway tours.

 5,) The monuments are cool.  There are hundreds of them, some merely mark the location a group of men stood at, others honor whole states.  Many are moving works of art.

 

 

6. There's lodging for every price range. There are luxury motels, budget motels, and campgrounds.  If you have several families and lots of kids meeting up, the campgrounds are great. 

 

Family reunion

 

On the other hand, when my son and I went, we stayed at a motel right by the battlefield.  We could see the cemetery outside the window.

 

 

 

 

 

7) There are ghosts.  Well they say there are ghosts.  There are tours and a train ride and all sorts of books on the subject.  I am not a psychic person myself, but personally I think that if any place on earth is haunted, it would be Gettysburg.

Boarding the Ghost Train

8) There is plenty of material available to prepare for your trip.  There are books and documentaries and feature films.  If you got out of American History class without reading The Killer Angels, read it. Or watch Gettysburg, the film that was made of the book.  Or Ken Burns' Civil War. Or any of the many writers who treated the battle and the War at even greater length

 

 



9) You can stand where they stood,  There is something extremely moving about standing on Little Round Top or Culp's Hill (the ends of the Union Line) and picture yourself in the shoes of those young men who knew they had to stand their ground or all was lost. 

 

 

 And can one fully appreciate the courage it took for the men in Pickett's command to form a line a mile across and advance in full view against the Union center, without walking their walk?

 

 

And then, upon reaching the other end, to turn around and imagine what the men in blue had seen advancing towards them.

 

 

If you are lucky there will be demonstrations going on when you are there, and you can get a real feel for the noise and smoke and chaos.

 

 

10) You can stand where Lincoln stood, in November of 1863, and made that magnificent speech that in about 200 words defined the country and the war.  You realize that when Lincoln spoke of "These brave men, living and dead" and "The last full measure of devotion" he was looking out at newly dug graves.

 

 

Americans often have a reputation for being ignorant of their history, or unappreciative of the sacrifices made for them.  It's impossible to go to Gettysburg and still be that way.

 











College Visit

    As I have mentioned several times in this blog I am the mother of a boy who is currently a high school senior.  As I have also mentioned before, the last year or so has been filled with a number of what I think of as Rites of Passage moments, milestones along the way to his adulthood and independence.  This last week produced another such milestone, as I accompanied him on his first college visit.

     Our destination was Gettysburg,PA, a 6-8  hour drive from Northeastern Ohio. Since our car objects to traveling 6-8 miles, and other forms of public transit were either too expensive or too inconvenient, we opted for Greyhound. The trip was actually pleasant, except for some bizarre routing that required us to go north to Cleveland in order to go east to Pittsburgh, a maneuver that added about 4 hours onto our trip.

     Gettysburg College has been our son's first choice ever since he started thinking about post secondary education. The opportunity to study American History, and especially Civil War History, in an area that so much of it happened drew him.  Our visit had several purposes. He would be able to view the campus, have an application interview, and also see something of the town. Oh and maybe get a little time on the battlefield. 

       The visit was a success in every respect. 

        We arrived on Thursday morning, dropped our bags at the motel, and spent the rest of the day on and off the battlefields. Our motel actually had a view out the window of the National Cemetery. It should tell you something about my son that he was delighted by this fact. The town has free bus service that loops around all the major sites, but we also walked around. We were both delighted by the friendliness and helpfulness of everyone we met. The Boy was happy to see that there were a lot of things to do including easy access to a Walmart.

      On Friday morning we reported promptly at 0830 to campus, where a full day of activities had been set up for him. The history buff was delighted to discover that we were in a building that had once been Dwight Eisenhower's office.  After his interview he went off with a tour guide for the rest of the day. I went on a parents tour, then spent the rest of the day exploring all those little antique and curiosity shops that a 17 year old boy wouldn't be caught dead in.

        When I came back at 3:30 it was to pick up a delighted son.  He liked everything he had seen: the facilities, the students, the professors. And to a mother's eye, it seemed that once again he had grown a bit more, matured a bit. Maybe because this was the first time he had really envisioned his future. We have talked about it, but now he was actually seeing it or at least seeing what it could be, and it showed in the way he talked about his day and his plans.

       Now we move on to the tangles of the application process. But at least he has the goal in sight at last.  

Slightly belated 4th of July Film Festival

One of the downsides of being a 911 operator is working the holidays (the upside of the downside is the holiday pay). Some holidays one really doesn't care, but there are holidays that one really doesn't want to have to work, and July 4th is definitely one of them. Between people who call asking when the official fireworks show is going to be, and people calling complaining about the unofficial fireworks show up the street, it tends to be a very hectic day, and doesn't allow much time for contemplation of the day. It also means missing the grand July 4th film marathon on TCM. But never fear, today we are off, we loaded the DVR last night go out some DVDs this morning and are ready to go.

1776--but of course. One of the best, most faithful adaptations of a musical to film, its also, for all the Broadway conventions, one of the most accurate retellings of the process of creating our country. And William Daniels is positively brilliant as John Adams. Besides, with this heatwave that's on right now, I truly appreciate that its "Hot as hell, in Philadelphia"

Yankee Doodle Dandy--It wouldn't be July 4th without this movie anymore than it would be Christmas without Its a Wonderful Life.Even as a young child, in the pre cable, pre VCR era, someone always ran this movie and we always watched because my dad loved James Cagney. However cynical one may be about some of Cohan's jingoism, it doesn't matter when watching the film. When remembers it began filming just as Pearl Harbor was being bombed, it adds a great urgency to many scenes. James Cagney's acting is only bettered by his dancing, a skill that most people wouldn't even realize he possessed were it not for this movie. The rest of the cast is excellent also. But its Mr Cagney's movie all the way, and he won one of the most well deserved Oscars in history.

Gettysburg-- People forget the events of Gettysburg took place just before the 4th of July, or that both sets of combatants considered themselves the true heirs of the Founding Fathers. Moreover if the Revolutionary War gave us a country, the Civil War determined the country it was going to be. The large scale battle scenes have never been bettered, the actors give amazing performances, and its all based on the best novel ever written about the Civil War (Sorry Stephen Crane, but I put The Killer Angels ahead of The Red Badge of Courage.)

Since 1776 and Gettysburg are both long films I have already shot most of the day. If my son were home we would have probably be watching The Patriot, but Mel Gibson annoys me so much any more that he ruins even good films for me. (though I do appreciate Jason Isaac's villainy.) I wish there were a Revolutionary documentary as satisfactory as Ken Burns' Civil War, but I may watch Founding Brothers, or one of the excellent History Channel documentaries on individual founding fathers. Or I may just curl up later with David McCullough's John Adams biography. They all all choices that honor who we are and how we got here, and I think that's what Patriotic Holidays are all about.