The first thing you need to know about this story is that son Nick and I are captives of the American Civil War. We’re not alone. We’ve visited battlefields from Vicksburg in the west to Cold Harbor in the East. All have sent shivers up our spines, helped us understand the sacrifice of men on both sides of the conflict that was to define our nation. None, however, have exerted the inexorable, almost mythic magnetism of Gettysburg.
Located in a pastoral salient of southeastern Pennsylvania 55 miles from Baltimore and 37 miles outside of Harrisburg, it’s no rhetorical reach to say that three days in early July 1863 went a long, long way in determining who we would be as a people.
If you really want to understand the battle and its significance, the place to begin is the Visitor Center, home of the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War. See relics from the battle, interactive exhibits and the Morgan Freeman-narrated film A New Birth of Freedom. Then, set out on your own to walk the paths heroes trod.
Make your way up the hill towards Little Round Top, where the Union’s Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his men turned back a determined Confederate charge. Had the South prevailed that day, taken the conical-shaped hill, they might well have won the overall battle – and thus changed the ultimate outcome of the war.
Then, head to the field across which Confederate General George Pickett and his men made their fateful, futile charge – a charge right into the teeth of the Union Army. Nick and I walked that field, tried to fathom how men could march that distance into such fury.
Gettysburg is no theme park. It’s a living, breathing memorial that beckons us to come and to contemplate.
(Image: Ron Cogswell)
