World United States Pennsylvania Gettysburg

Weicherdings Adventures 2012 Gettysburg

Battlefield May 6, 2012

Wednesday A dreary day so we decided to go to the visitor’s center and get familiar with the park. What a nice center it is, only open for a couple of years. The diorama which is 42 ft high 377 ft wide and painted on canvas only took one year to paint, but it took 5 years to restore and move from the original visitor’s center. It took us the entire day to go through most of the building. In addition to the diorama, and theater, the center has a large museum, an ancestry area where you can look up actual individuals who fought it the battle. It takes a day for you to really begin to understand the significance of the battle, how close Lee came to actually winning the battle and seemingly insignificant events which resulted in such important factors in the outcome of the battle and therefore the nature of this country. Thursday Another day of suffering in silence, no sympathy, maybe tomorrow. (Poor baby). Friday After a day of rest, my knee feeling a little better, so we decided to start the auto tour of the battlefield. We dropped in the first disk and waited for the instructions to begin, nothing, no sound and all we could get was “reading disk” on the screen. Everything was working fine on the way from Florida so we figured it had to be the disk, tried another and another, got out the owner’s manual to see if there was a fuse, but this time nothing so simple. It was then off to Walmart where we purchase a DVD player then struggled in the parking lot figuring out how to hook the damn thing up to play through the radio. We finally off for the first stop on the tour. Going past Walmart was not on the tour route so now we had to recon our way. Suffice it to say we should have gone back to the Visitor Center and started from there. But, no, not us! We wandered the back streets until we found Auto tour stop 16, we only had to back track to get stop 1, one problem, the streets on the route are one way so more back roads, but I persevered and found a much needed restroom, and shortly thereafter, stop 1. We were now ready to start July 1, the first day of the battle. The southern army stumbled upon northern troops who they thought local militia, and not part of regular northern army. General Lee did not know the significance of Gettysburg and did not want a battle at this point. Here is one of the little things of this battle that made such a difference. Lee had no maps of the area so didn’t know that several strategic supply roads came through this little town, and his Calvary (Jeb Stuart), which normally supplied intelligence, was out gathering food and disrupting supply lines. Lee had ordered his men not to become engaged in a major conflict, but thinking the union soldiers to be local militia, they attacked and thus began the very bloody first day of a three day battle. Lee’s army won the first days fighting, driving the union army back into town and into their defensive positions. This was a classic case of winning the battle and losing the war. The Union army held the high ground. Our next stop on the tour was the eternal flame monument, it was 12:30, Jean is normally more than ready to eat at this time, but suggested we eat after we finished this stop. Well, as only Jean can do, she struck up a conversation with a local who told her the battle was a hobby of his and he would be happy to answer any questions we might have. Well that started it, not to end until 2:30 when I was starting to get weak from lack of food. Must say, he was very informative, but I could have missed the hour we spent talking about what he should see and do on his summer trip to the Florida Keys. Next we were off to several stops (not all on the auto tour) along Seminary Ridge and through the old Lutheran Seminary. We did manage to get to the Virginia monument located near the spot Lee set up his headquarters, and from which Picketts Charge would begin. (stop #5 on the auto tour) Standing around the eternal flame monument for 2 hrs caused my knee to stiffen up and it was passed the 5 o’clock somewhere time happy hour, so we headed home. Just a side note, still waiting for a little sympathy. (HA!!)

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