“The Battle Hymn of the Republic”

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, April 29 – May 6, 2022

I could ramble on with what we learned about the three day battle in Gettysburg (pronounced by the locals as “Get us berg”), but I don’t want to bore you to death. I will try to just give you the highlights. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting and tried to immerse ourselves in the experience.

We learned about the battle which occurred from July 1st – 3rd in 1863 from a park ranger. Our ranger (Matt Atkinson – look him up – he is pretty famous on the civil war) walked us from the Visitors Center to Cemetery Hill (the site of the last day of fighting) and talked about the battle for 2 ½ hours. Years ago, I would have skipped this, but now that I am old and retired, I really enjoyed the talk. Steve and I enjoyed it so much that we went on a second ranger tour (same ranger) about the Gettysburg address and the Soldiers National Cemetery. Both talks were awesome.

The battlefield itself has been mostly preserved and looks much like it did in 1863, with fences, hills, rocks, and cannons. The monuments gave us an opportunity to see where the troops were located. We took a bus tour of the park. Our tour guide was excellent and told us that she had to take a six month class, pass a written and verbal exam in order to qualify as a guide. She was excellent. We drove the battlefield by car as well and spent more time walking and viewing the monuments. There are over 1300 monuments, so it is tough to see them all – but we did see a lot.

Of course we went to the Visitors Center. There we watched a movie that is narrated by Morgan Freeman and explains the battle. We saw the cyclorama – This is a 360 degree painting which depicts Pickett’s charge on the 3rd day of the battle. The Visitors Center also includes a museum which leads you through the three days of the battle. We stopped by the computer center which has a computer database, so that you can look up your ancestors who might have fought in the civil war and at Gettysburg. I had ancestors that fought on both sides. I only looked up one and he did fight at Gettysburg and survived!

As if all of that was not enough, we relived the 3 day battle at the Gettysburg diorama.

We walked through downtown Gettysburg several times. The city is larger now than in 1863, but it is easy to visualize how the city looked then. Buildings from 1863 are marked with a plaque. We did not eat at General Pickett’s buffet, but we had lunch at the Appalachian Brewing Company. I thought the caesar salad was great.

During our stay, we took a quick trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania to visit Kevin (Steve’s friend from college) and his wife, Marilou. They showed us around Hershey and fed us a fabulous dinner.

Next up the Delaware and the Jersey Shore!

“Battle Hymn of the Republic” written by Julia Ward Howe. My favorite musical version was done by Judy Garland.