I'm just back from an absolutely beautiful morning's trip to Gettysburg. Not only a lovely day out, but the first purely recreational drive in the Midget since I assumed responsibility for waking the little perisher after a hibernation of some 17 years or so. So, some photos for the history minded amongst us:
First is one of the monuments to the cavalry that refused the initial Confederate exploratory advance on the town on the first day.
Under John Buford, the cavalry in question (more dragoons in the European sense) fought a dismounted action in open skirmish order, causing the Confederate infantry opposing to deploy and allowing the Federal infantry time to come forward beyond the town and to deploy to the high ground. This was a traditional dragoon role, but under the circumstances incredibly ballsy given the numbers in opposition.
Second is an overview of Buford's cavalry field from the Confederate perspective.
The towers of the Lutheran Seminary visible are from where the Confederates were first observed and from where Buford controlled his battle. It was brilliantly fought, and would have fit Wellington's definition of "a near-run thing".
Next a view that shows the terrain where an engagement was fought through corn fields and in and out of a railway cutting.
In that area is the "Peace-Light", a monument with an eternal flame shown here:
Moving to the third and last day, a view from the Emmitsburg Road across the field of Pickett's Charge. The treeline is where Pickett's infantry, after an artillery barrage, debouched heading towards us as we view it, some 12,500 men in nine brigades.
This grove of trees was the objective of that assault, a landmark visible by the corps making the assault.
This next gives a view of the terrain. The bus is on the Emmittsburg road. The treeline distant is the startpoint of the assault, all over open terrain in classic Napoleonic formation. The stone wall is the Federal position; those who survived the trip across that open ground under rifle and artillery fire were repulsed at or just inside that wall.
Another view of the wall, referred to in many books today as the "high water mark of the Confederacy".
Adjacent to the "Grove of Trees" is the Pennsylvania monument.
"Grrr" the Midget looking a little too perky for its own good, and obviously pleased with itself.
It did garner a few waves, many stares, some "thumbs-up", and looks quite tiny next to the field gun in the photo.
A shot on the road back home, as we roll along (cheerfully over the speed limit no doubt).
The car behaved wonderfully, so the several months wake-up process has been largely successful.
We go back to this view of the "High Water Mark" for a minute to make an obvious point many people don't get in places like this.
Many think history just stops somehow on a famous site, but it just keeps rolling along. This very ground was the site of Camp Colt during the First World War, a training site (for the infant US Armoured corps) under the command of a young little known officer by the name of Eisenhower. During the Second World War, there was a POW camp of some 350 ETO POWs here, called the Gettysburg stockade, part of a complex of facilities that was finally consolidated in 1945. Most folks visiting here don't realise the breadth of events here, only the events during the American Civil War.
Of course, we have to have people who don't get it at all. Vandals tore the arm off this monument back a couple years ago.
The lads at the Park found enough bits to measure and the public sent in many photos such the NPS folk could model the missing bits and restore it to it's former glory.
