Gettysburg

We went to Gettysburg because it was 'there'.  We literally were driving past the site.  There was no excuse not to stop. This is the only Civil War battle that is even hazily remembered 150 years after it was fought.  The reason?  Mainly, the 77 word Gettysburg Address given by President Lincoln five months after the battle.  Unique for the time, he dedicated the cemetery established at the battle site, with the Gettysburg Address. This speech was written by Lincoln in his carriage on the way to Pennsylvania.  His speech was a shocking scandal at the time. 

It's hard for us in the 21st century to understand the importance attached to 'oratory' in the 19th century.  This is an era with limited entertainment - getting to see and hear a real orator talk on an issue for 2 or 3 hours would be the same as us attending the hot new movie today.  Lincoln spoke for less than 2 minutes - following a speaker who had talked for about 2 hours.  People felt cheated - his speech was supposed to be the main attraction.  Very few journalists understood the importance of the speech in summarizing the reason for the Civil War.  Lincoln's remarks have endured in America similar to Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech.  Because of its brevity, most of us at some point in school memorized it - and it was often the first time we had to stand up in front of the class and 'recite'.

However, it wasn't until I stood on the battlefield that I understood the real meaning of Lincoln's speech.  Gettysburg is a horrendous place.  It's beautiful which makes it all the more horrific.  More than 7000 men were killed outright here.  More than 30,000 were wounded, and 10,000 were captured or just outright missing.  This was a 3 day battle fought in major and minor skirmishes (little battles), around and through the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  It is the biggest battle (and virtually the only battle) fought in the North.  This was a gamble by Robert E Lee, the Confederate supreme commander,  to win a major battle on Northern soil which would then become the springboard for a political settlement of the war.  Lee knew that the Confederacy could not conceivably win an protracted war.  

Looking at the museum and the artifacts from the battle and a comparison of the equipment of both sides, it was apparent that this lost battle was the 'high water mark' of the Confederacy.  The curators personalized this museum.  For me, there was a visceral impact of the huge numbers of young men who died here.  There's always the question when so many die:  Did they die in vain?  I must say the answer is grudgingly 'no'.  If Lee, with a victory at Gettysburg, would have been able to force a political settlement of the war, the question of slavery would have remained unsettled, and the dissolution of the United States at the point of territorial expansion across the continent would have had disastrous consequences. 

I think there were two reasons that this visit to a 150 year old battle site affected me so.  One, we toured the museum with a large number of 16 to 18 year old teenagers.  (A high school history class was having a field trip.)  Juxtapositioned with the pictures of the actual soldiers, it was as if the Civil War soldiers had come to life.  150 years ago, the boys swirling around me in the museum would have been in this battle.  Second, Gettysburg, a little Pennsylvania farm town, with the misfortune of being a crossroads of 10 roads fanning out across the countryside, was a victim of the battlefield carnage.  The 1800 residents were left with 30,000 wounded soldiers, thousands of rotting corpses - both human and animal littering not just one field, but  lots of fields surrounding the entire town.  The trauma and disaster post-battle is almost unimaginable.  Diaries from townspeople talk about the 'stench' that lasted for months.  The screams of the dying and wounded were endured by all the residents.  Every building was littered with the wounded.  The bulk of the armies moved on - and left the carnage behind for the Gettysburg civilians to cope with.

The museum here was huge.  It included not only artifacts, but also photographs, and a mini-history lesson to set the battle in context.  The zenith experience of the museum was the cyclorama - a 360 degree painting done in the 1880's depicting the battle.  The artist consulted veterans who were there to insure accuracy, and I'm sure that many veterans who witnessed the painting 20 years after the battle experienced post traumatic stress.  I found it very stressful, and I didn't personally know people who were wounded or who died either standing next to me or by my hand.

They call the Gettysburg battlefield 'sacred ground', and it really is.  This is the battle that was the death rattle of slavery.  If, for no other reason, that makes the Union victory and the soldiers who sacrificed their lives to achieve it worthwhile.

I hope my pictures convey the depth and importance of this place in the building of who we are as Americans.

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