Gettysburg - Day 2

The following day we went back to Gettysburg since our visit had been cut short with the rain storm and we still had more to see.  

We went back to the Visitor's Center before it got too crowded so we could look through the book store.  We parked in a different area so we got a whole new viewpoint as we went in.

This was interesting.

Back to the truck so we could start the auto tour.  With the National Park Service app (if you're going to a National Park, I suggest you download this app) it actually will give you audio snippets from each stop.

Remember General John Reynolds, the commander of the Union first corps, who was the first to arrive in Gettysburg to help General Buford's cavalry?  After his arrival he was shot in the head by a Confederate sniper and died on the first day of fighting.  This occurred on Seminary Ridge, named because the Seminary building is on the ridge.  

Seminary Building

This is the area where General Reynolds was shot and a monument has been erected to honor him.

General John Reynolds

This is the area where General Buford first made contact with the first Confederates coming over the hill from Cashtown.

And a statue to memorialize General Buford.

A really nice monument remembering the North Carolina soldiers.

And because I'm slightly partial to the South Carolina soldiers (RIP, William J. Brooks), I wanted to remember the monument honoring them.

The battlefield covers about 6,000 acres and there are monuments, statues, and memorials EVERYWHERE - and I do mean EVERYWHERE.  They are all in beautiful condition and it looks like their maintenance program is working well.

As we were standing here, a van drove up and parked behind us and out of the van came a group of tourists.

They travelled in a van?

We took a detour to visit the Eisenhower farmhouse.  This was the farm of General and 34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  It is adjacent to the Gettysburg battlefield and served as a weekend retreat and a meeting place for world leaders.  With its peaceful setting and view of South Mountain, it was a respite from Washington, DC and a backdrop for efforts to reduce Cold War tensions.  The farm at Gettysburg was the only home that the President and his wife ever owned.

We knew that the house was closed the day we were there but the Park Ranger encouraged us to visit the grounds and walk around.  It actually worked well because there was only one other couple there which made it easy to walk freely.

We walked around to the back of the house.

These bells are interesting.  The first is called the "Frisco Bell" on the northern end of the patio.  It was presented by Clark Hungerford of the Frisco Railroad and was originally used on a steam locomotive operated by the St. Louis/San Francisco Railroad Company.  It is inscribed with both the railroad's emblem as well as the seal of the President of the United States.

The bell at the southern end of the patio was a gift from Arthur K. Atkinson, president of the Wabash Railroad Company.  The bells inscription reads "To D.E. from Art".

As my dad would have said, I can just visualize Ike relaxing while he putted.

There is a beautiful garden - I wonder if the president liked to also putter in the garden?

For my family and those who have followed my genealogy blog, you might recognize this bench that was similar to one that was a main stay on our porch as we were growing up.

Even though the farm wasn't all that far from Washington D.C., it was handy to have a helicopter landing pad so that he could get there quickly.

And then it was back to the Civil War.

We moved on to Little Round Top which was a strategic position for the Union Army on the second day of the battle.  

The night between the first and second day battles, the Union Army formed its forces into the shape of a fish hook that ran from Cemetery and Culp's Hill down the length of the hook towards Little Round Top that was the end of the Union line.  It is a well-known historical event that Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine were given the important duty of protecting the Union extreme left.  If the Confederates had outflanked the Union Army at this position, they could have, essentially, rolled up the entire Union Army along Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top.

The monument to the 20th Maine is in honor of the individuals that participated in that unit.

The Union defenses used this stone wall for protection from the Confederate fire.

It was quite a view from the top of Little Round Top.  

A nice view of Devil's Den.  This boulder-strewn hill was formed with Little Round Top (to the east-northeast) and Big Round Top (southwest) and used as artillery and infantry (i.e. sharpshooters) on the second day of the battle.  The feature acquired its name prior to the 1863 battle.  Throughout the 19th century, local residents believed that the crevices between the boulders were home to a large snake.  The size of the snake varied between accounts, but reports ranged from 8 feet to as large as 15 feet.  The snake became known as "The Devil" and thus the area he was believed to inhabit became known as "The Devil's Den".

Since the downpour yesterday prevented us from poking around the historic downtown area, we moved on.  After all, it was lunch time!

And next door was a very interesting building with a lot of history.

The home of Gettysburg attorney David Wills was the center of the immense clean-up process after the battle and where President Lincoln put the finishing touches on his Gettysburg Address, the speech that transformed Gettysburg from a place of death and devastation to the symbol of our nation's "new birth of freedom".  

Just outside the house is a life-size statue of Abraham Lincoln greeting a modern-day visitor holding a copy of the Gettysburg Address.  The bronze statue, called the "Return Visit" is the work of noted sculptor J. Seward Johnson, Jr.  The scene depicts Lincoln pointing to the Wills House, apparently explaining where he completed the Address on the might of November 18, 1863.  

Last stop of the day was the cemetery.

Originally called Soldier's National Cemetery, President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address at the cemetery's consecration on November 19, 1863.  The cemetery contains about 3,500 interments from the Civil War, including the graves of 979 unknowns.  It also has sections for veterans of the Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1917-1918) and other wars, along with graves of the veterans' spouses and children.  The total number of interments is more than 6,000.

We got to the cemetery just as the intern, Brady, was ready to start his tour so we joined him.

The graves are arranged in a wide semi-circle that radiate of from the Soldiers' National Monument which marks the center of the cemetery.

Soldiers' National Monument

The cemetery design was created by William Saunders, a famed "landscape gardener".  The burials are organized around state sections, divided into an inner ring (for smaller states) and outer ring (for larger states).  The position of each lot, and indeed of each interment, is relatively of equal importance.  The evenness and equality of the gravestones, where men of differing rank and position rest side-by-side, contrasts sharply with the jumbling diversity visible next door in the Evergreen Cemetery.

As usual, Ron asked if there were any witness trees in the cemetery and Brady pointed to this.

Apparently, due to disease the only remaining witness tree was recently cut down.

Brady told us about three separate soldiers who served in the Iron Brigade, AKA the black hats.  The stories were very different but the one who stood out to me was Peter L. Foust, the only one of the three who is not buried in the "unknown" section of the cemetery.

Peter Foust enlisted for the Union as a Private in Company C, 19th Indiana Infantry.  He was mustered into service on August 9, 1862 and was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.  He was survived by his wife, Sarah, 4 year old daughter, Elizabeth, and eight month old son, Peter.

We talked about the cannons that were displayed throughout the cemetery and battlefield.  In most cases, the tube of the cannon is original.

Brady showed us how it was documented where and when each cannon was made.  I don't remember what each of the markings mean but Brady was able to tell us.

And then it was time to focus on the Gettysburg Address.

President Lincoln was asked to deliver a message at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War Cemetery on November 19, 1863.  The featured speaker for the occasion was Edward Everett, a former dean of Harvard University and one of the most famous orators of the time.  He spoke for two hours.  Lincoln then delivered his message; it took two minutes.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its brevity, since the speech was delivered it has come to be recognized as one of the most powerful statements in the English language and, in fact, one of the most important expressions of freedom and liberty in any language.  Everett afterward wrote to Lincoln that "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes".

This memorial is often thought to be located at the spot where Lincoln gave his address.  

But, in fact, this is not the spot.  

Modern research has found that the true spot, according to research backed by the National Park Service, lies along the crest of a hill just outside the gates of the cemetery on the grounds of an older cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery at the spot of the Blue Star Memorial.

Blue Star Marker and Blue Star Memorial By Way, Gettysburg Garden Club

Phew, that was two long days but I learned so much with one more historical day to come.