Travel Log Part 4: Gettysburg

We received an amazing history lesson in Gettysburg. We hired a tour guide to drive us around the battlefield. He gave us a very informative and interesting tour. He clearly painted the picture of the three day battle, talking us through every step of the events that unfolded at Gettysburg. I feel that I know more Civil War history now than I have ever known. We both really enjoyed this stop on our trip.

This is the train station where Lincoln arrived to deliver his famous address just four months after the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

The monument to Lincoln near the site where the Gettysburg Address was given.

On the battlefield of day one. This spot was won by the Confederates. In the background is the peace monument with an eternal flame. It's made from materials from Alabama and Maine showing unity of North and South.

Part of the battlefield of day three. Monuments show where the battle lines met. The direction the monuments face show the direction the soldiers were facing when confronting the enemy.

Army regimens were divided by state and so all of the monuments at Gettysburg honor each state. This was the statue done for the state of North Carolina. The sculptor is the same person who also did Mt. Rushmore. Our tour guide said that 1 in every 4 soldiers that were killed at Gettysburg were from North Carolina. Not necessarily that there were more from North Carolina than any other state, but they were involved in the last days fighting in the doomed Pickett's charge where confederate soldiers gave one last attempt to win at Gettysburg with an all out charge into the middle of the union line. They were pounded by heavy artillery from three sides. This failed attempt at Gettysburg is often termed the "the high tide" of the Confederate army. Meaning they had reached their pinnacle and the final two years of the war the Confederates were never the same.
(Tara is not going to like that I am being too wordy, but I found this all very interesting.)


The Pennsylvania state monument. It is the biggest monument of all, probably because the battle took place in Pennsylvania. Lincoln is on the left with General George Meade on the right. It was noted on the tour that the leader of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee at the beginning of the war was given the choice to lead the Union Army. He knew General Meade as they both were generals in the US Army before the Civil War and both attended West Point. Lee turned down the offer because he could not fight against his native Virginia. Lee, lost his 30 year pension, he lost his home in Virginia. Because of a grudge a union general, whose name I cannot recall, began burying Union soldiers in Lee's rose garden at his former home. This "rose garden" today is known as Arlington National Cemetery.