Gettysburg

Friday morning we got up, had breakfast in the hotel, packed the car, then head out to see the battle field.

We went first to the Visitor Center, saw a short film, the newly-restored and enhanced Cyclorama, and got our guide for the driving tour.

The first stops (first two pix here) were along the Union lines to the west of the town where th first day's battle was fought. Lee was marching 60,000 men down the Chambersburg Pike through the gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two brigades of U.S. Cavalry (about 2900 men) had dismounted and dug in in a north south line along the top of a ridge--they also had a few cannons, about 4 or 5, I think. The closest Union infantry was about 15 miles south of town.

The cavalry's commander had seen that the strongest position in the area was a ridge called Cemetery Hill just southeast of town, and he needed to keep the Rebels from getting there first. So he dismounted his men and had them dig in. Just as they were beginning to break in the afternoon, the infantry arrived and took over for the cavalry, who then pulled back to Cemetery Hill and began digging in there.

Eventually, another part of Lee's army arrived from the north and was able to roll up the Union's right flank, sending the infantry streaming back though town to Cemetery Hill. Rebel commanders thought they had won a major victory, but in gaining control of the high ground, the Union really won the day.

The next two pictures are from the center of the Confederate line on days two and three of the battle. The statue of Lee there sits more or less in the spot he viewed things from. The picture with Lori in it is looking east across the 3/4-mile fields the Rebels would try to cross the next day to get to the Federals' line on Cemetery Hill in the distance.

The Mississippi monument is down near the southern end of the Rebels' line, which is where most of day two's fighting took place. Both armies were fighting to get control of two hills on the Union left or southern flank, called Round Top and little Round Top. The Rebels wanted to put artillery on one of the hills, which they could have used to pound the whole Federal army from its left flank. The picture of me with the statue of a man with binoculars is taken from the crest of Little Round Top looking south. The picture of Lori beside the placard is from the same spot looking northwest toward the Rebel lines. The Union army won, and held both hills at the end of the second day.

The last three battlefield pictures are taken from the Union's position on Cemetery Hill. The infantry fought lying down or kneeling behind the stone fence. The Rebels marched in a mile-long line across the open field, having to stop and cross fences numerous times. They broke the Union line only briefly at a spot right on the hill here, but then faltered and fell back, and the battle was over. 50,000 killed or injured over three days here in July of 1863.

The statue Lori's standing by is Union commander George Meade, and it's on the spot where his HQ was during the second and third days.

We went back into town, had lunch, and then headed out of Gettysburg to the west, up the Chambersburg Pike to the gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains.