Gettysburg

This posting will deal mainly with a trip Kim and I took last weekend to Gettysburg. However, before I get on to the main dish, I thought we'd start with something that has bothered me for a long time. I am referring, of course, to people saying that they are in a 'insert type here' sandwich when they stand between two people who share a particular characteristic. "I'm in a Michael sandwich!" (when standing between two Michaels) or "I'm in a software engineer sandwich..." (said with disappointment and slight apprehension). The problem with this class of statement is that sandwiches are named for what's in between the two pieces of bread. This is so obvious it's embarrassing to say. Only in specific cases does the bread get a mention in the name of the sandwich. Which is why saying "I'm in a Michael sandwich" is like saying, "I'm having a wheat bread sandwich for lunch". A true Michael sandwich would have a Michael in the middle and two people on the outside with some similar characteristic. But unless they were particularly unusual or interesting, they wouldn't warrant a mention. Thanks for bearing with me on that.

Now on to Gettysburg! Last Friday Kim and I took off on Friday evening and headed North through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, arriving at Gettysburg just after 9 pm. As we went to pull into our old farmhouse bed and breakfast, I turned (in the pitch black darkness mind you) into what I thought (because of the sign placement and lighting) was the driveway. Turns out it was the front yard. We had to just sit there and wait for cars to pass before I could back onto the roadway, drive 20 feet further down the road, and enter the actual driveway. Embarrassing.

Kim and I both shared a fear that Gettysburg would be an uninspiring expanse of fields and woods coupled with boring museum exhibits. In fact, Gettysburg turned out to be fantastic. We started at the new visitors center (very cool) and watched a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman about the battlefield. I decided that if a movie is ever made about my life, I want Morgan Freeman to narrate it. Or Alastair Moyer. Or Kim. After the movie we went upstairs to an exhibit called the "Cyclorama". You're forgiven for assuming that a "Cyclorama" is a bicycle exhibition. In fact, it's a huge 360 degree painting which depicts a crucial moment on the last day of the battle. It was done by a French painter and includes thousands of figures. You stand in the middle while a guide points out the most interesting parts of the pictures. Downstairs there's a big museum, which is interesting but overwhelming.

After the visitor center we headed over to lunch at a little restaurant (cheeseburger: $4.50) and then walked through the town center. We stopped at an antique shop where a man who saw our license plate asked us some questions about being from Washington. As we turned to leave he asked us a couple more. Then as we attempted to make our way to the door he continued asking us rephrased versions of questions we'd always answered. We eventually managed to squeeze out the door.

One place that surprised us was a store that billed itself as a "museum where everything's on sale". It was all real artifacts with price tags on them. We bought a bullet for $2 and sent it to my dad. We were going to buy the tree stump with a cannonball and bullets in it for $15,000 but it had already been sold.

That evening we started out on an audio tour of which we were both a little dubious. The idea is that you drive around the battlefield while listening to explanatory history on CD. It actually turned out to be amazing as we sat at each spot hearing what happened there. Once it got dark we headed over to a cool underground restaurant Kim had found for dinner.

The next day we finished up the audio tour and felt like we'd really gotten a good feel for the history of the area and what happened. Little Round Top was just like I'd imagined it. Devil's Den was an out of place outcropping of huge rocks that look like it was made to film a war movie. It's sobering to think of what actually happened there. The strangest part of the battlefield was standing on the Confederate positions and looking across the field they charged. And by 'charged' I mean 'walked slowly' while getting mowed down by cannons and bullets. Then to go across the field and see what the Union soldiers would have seen at the same moment. It had to be stunning for them that the Confederates would just line up and walk towards them like they did. Crazy. Also, the whole battlefield is littered with hundreds of monuments to different states and regiments and brigades. Some of them had flowers on them.

That night we watched the movie 'Gettysburg'. It's about 15 years old (and looks it), but it's quite moving as it tells the stories of different soldiers on each side of the battle. All together, we feel like we got a thorough understanding of the battle, the history behind it, and a picture of the different people involved. We highly recommend it.

Just a quick note if you do go: You'll probably expect places like 'Cemetery Ridge' and 'Seminary Ridge' to be located on land discernibly higher than the land around it. In South Eastern Pennsylvania, you'd be surprised as what qualifies as a topographical feature. Kim and I were routinely confused by discussions about the Union troops occupying the 'high ground' that was pointed out to us. Usually this amounted to a piece of land that would only be recognized as higher in elevation than that around it by an experienced surveying crew.

On the way back we stopped in Frederick, Maryland to patronize "the largest used book store in the Washington-Baltimore area". As Kim and I are both book people, we were visibly excited, having prepared our lists of what books we want. What we found was "the least organized book store in the Washington-Baltimore-Ottawa-Fairbanks-Kansas City-Los Angeles-Tokyo area". The store was divided into traditional book store sections. From there it's all downhill as books of the same subject (interpreted loosely) are crammed into shelves in no particular order. I asked about a particular book and was taken to a corner of the store and told the book 'would be in here if we have it'. The section was a horrifically shelved section of books, many of which belonged in another section. One upside was that all books in Russian were $.99. So there's that.

After the bookstore we went and saw Averill at Goucher College in Baltimore. We went and got lunch which made Averill's day as it was not the Goucher cafeteria. Then it was picking up a new chair at Ikea (an excellent reading chair that you can enjoy should you come visit us) and back home to get ready for the week.

Gosh, I always go way too long on this. Sorry everyone.

Our Bed and Breakfast

This is the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge. In the background on the right are Little Round Top and Big Round Top.

This is the field that the Confederates marched across during Pickett's Charge on the last day of the battle.

This is the view from Little Round Top. The rocks in the middle of the picture is called Devil's Den. On the left near the little shed is the area called the Slaughter Pen because of all the men who died there. The Union troops on this hill had clear shots at Confederate soldiers attacking up the hill.



Here we are standing on top of Devil's Den.



Gettysburg from a look out tower.


This picture was taken behind the center of the Union lines. Pickett's Charge got as far as the tree in the middle before being pushed back.

In the background you can see all the monuments to all the different regiments and brigades. These were everywhere on the battlefield. This exact spot marked the turning point of the war.