GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD TOUR
Paul and Tori stopped at the Gettysburg home of their friends Frank and Denise Marrone.
Here is one way you can tour the battlefield sights, in a 1930's bus.
In the foreground is Cavalary Brig. Gen. John Buford, who contained Heth's Division CSA while awaiting the arrivial of the 1st Corps. Beyond him, horsemounted is, the ill fated, 1st Corps Commander, Maj. Gen. John Reynolds.
The first day of the battle, July 1st, saw the Federal - Army Of The Potomac - 1st Corps lose it's leader Gen. John Reynolds soon after his arrival on the scene. This memorial marker is located where he fell.
Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday [ YES the same...Baseball's Founder ] assumed command of the 1st Corps for the balance of the battle.
The beautiful and unique Pennsylvania 90th Regiment Monument located on Oak Ridge. The bronze mother bird with peeps in nest along with bronzed ivy vines entwined around the trunk of the masonry tree is one of the most unique monuments on the battlefield.
The Eternal Peace Light Monument was dedicated in 1938, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on the 75th Anniversary of the bloodiest engagement of the American Civil War.
Tori standing by the impressive North Carolina tablet with the state's monument beyond.
Paul in front of the massive Virginia monument featuring the likeness of Gen. Robert E. Lee, horsemounted on Trooper, overlooking the 1 mile span of open fields across which the fateful [Pickett's] charge of the 3rd day's battle sealed the defeat of the Army Of Northern Virginia and the Confederacy.
Informational plaque giving details of Longstreet's Corps, Pickett's Division, First Virginia Infantry Brigade, Company G of which Tori's Great-grandfather Richard Dudley Jordan [1842-1907] was a private. He had been severely wounded earlier, in May, 1862, at the Battle of Seven Pines. He was again injured during "Pickett's Charge" during the Gettysburg engagement, recovered, and was later wounded once more and captured at Five Forks not to be released until after the end of hostilities. The following taken from the veterans' records in the National Archives indicates that Richard D. Jordan enlisted at Richmond on 21 Apr 1861 and was captured at Five Forks on 1 Apr 1865. He was sent to Point Lookout, MD where he was released after taking an Oath of Allegiance to the United States on 14 Jun 1865. The record of the Oath of Allegiance states that he had a dark complexion, black hair, hazel eyes and was 5'-7 1/2" in height.
The unique Lt. Gen. James Longstreet sculpture is concealed behind shrubbery and is easily missed while driving along West Confederate Ave.
The Louisiana Monument is an inspiring sight with the statue of Victory soaring over a fallen infantryman.
The memorial honoring Gen. Warren was placed atop Little Round Top in 1888. From this vantage point he was able to call for reinforcements to protect the Union's position on the 2nd day ot the battle.
The Pennsylvania 83th Regiment helped protect the flank of Little Round Top.
The castle like 44th New York Regiment monument atop Little Round Top.
Tori and Paul at the monument and right flank marker of Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's 20th Maine, which repelled, with little or no ammunition remaining, the multi-assaults by the Rebs on the slopes of Little Round Top.
The unique boulders and massive rock outcropings of Devil's Den.
Sharpshooters Pen, in the Devil's Den, from which Confederate riflemen were able to fire on Union troops on Little Round Top.
Paul standing in the opening of one of several cave or tunnel like features found at Devil's Den.
[LtoR] Triangle Field hehind Devil's Den, The bloody Wheatfield and the nearby Trostle Barn [with cannon ball]. All were sites of heavy fighting during the second day of the engagement.
The largest monument on the battlefield the massive and most impressive Pennsylvania memorial, was dedicated in 1910. The names of all 34,000 plus individuals who served during the Civil War representing the state are engraved on the tablets around the base.
The Pennsylvania 56th Infantry's monument is extremely
unique being entirely made of bronze.
The New York Irish Brigade monument comprised of the 63rd, 69th,and 88th Infantrys is singularly unique.
Brightly colored pantalooned attired Birneys Zouaves of the Pennsylvania 23rd Regiment.
The so called Highwater Mark just east of the Copse Of Trees represents the furthest penetration of the men of Pickett's Charge.
Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead, CSA led his Brigade to the Highwater Mark which is close by to where he fell mortally wounded, marked today by this scrolled memorial tablet near The Angle.
"Masonic Monument",the centerpiece of the National Cemetery Annex, depicting a Union soldier comforting the dying Confederate Brig. Gen. Armistead.
[Left]The first monument placed on the battlefield, in 1869, was that of the Minnesota 1st Volunteers. [Right]The only civilian casualty was Jennie Wade, who was killed by a bullet which passed through her front door. This monument marks her grave in "Evergreen Cemetery".
The soaring Soldiers and Sailors National Memorial at the center of the Gettysburg National Cemetery was dedicated in 1869.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address tablet and monument are both near where the
President gave the great speech on November 19, 1863.
The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the most important battles of the U.S. Civil War, was fought at Gettysburg, Pa., on July 1-3, 1863. Gen. Robert E. Lee invaded Pennsylvania for strategical and logistical reasons. His army of about 75,000 encountered the Union Army of the Potomac, about 90,000 strong, under Gen. George G. Meade on the outskirts of Gettysburg on July 1. In a battle of considerable movement, Lee tested first the Union right (July 1) and then, in an assault led by Gen. James Longstreet, the left (July 2). On July 3, Gen. George Pickett led perhaps the most famous charge in American military history against the Union center. Only 5,000 of his original force of 15,000 survived the repulse. Lee watched the survivors return and confessed, "It is all my fault." Gettysburg, a military and logistical disaster for the South, cost Lee 20,000 men (killed and wounded) and 30,000 arms. Meade lost almost as many men. The battle had considerable psychological effect on both North and South, calling forth President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Occurring in the same week that Vicksburg fell to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Gettysburg put the Confederates on the defensive in the east.
Frank E. Vandiver for Grolier's Encyclopedia
Lincoln Invited to Gettysburg To Consecrate a Civil War Cemetery, November 19, 1863.
On November 2, 1863, several months after the battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3), David Wills invited President Lincoln to make a "few appropriate remarks" at the consecration of a cemetery for the Union war dead. In early July, Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtin had charged Wills, a successful local citizen and judge, with cleaning up the horrible aftermath of the battle: wounded soldiers crammed into every available building, and thousands of swollen dead strewn among hundreds of bloated dead horses. With the approval of the governor and the eighteen states whose sons were among the dead, Wills quickly acquired seventeen acres for the national cemetery and had the Germantown landscape architect, William Saunders, draw up a plan. Burial began not long after. On September 23, Wills invited the venerable Edward Everett, the nation's foremost rhetorician, to give an oration at the dedication ceremony planned for October 23. Everett accepted, but, needing more time to prepare, persuaded Wills to postpone the ceremony to November 19. Although Wills wrote his invitation to Lincoln only three weeks prior to the dedication -- prompting speculation among historians about his and Governor Curtin's motivations -- there is evidence that Lincoln was fully apprised of the affair in early October. Further, Wills's invitation included a warm welcome to the president to stay at his house, along with Everett and Curtin. Lincoln accepted the invitation, probably viewing it as an appropriate time to honor all those who had given their lives in the Civil War. He may also have seen the dedication as an opportunity to reveal his evolving thinking about the War,as a fight not only to save the Union, but also to establish freedom and equality for all under the law. These ideas are central to the speech Lincoln gave at Gettysburg, which, despite its brevity, as opposed to Edward Everett's long-forgotten two-hour oration, has become one of the most memorable of all time.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate- we cannot consecrate- we cannot hallow- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that this government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
