Friday, December 9, 2011

A Gentle Introduction to Gettysburg, and then a Trip to 21st, 19th and 18th Century Stamp Sites

On Saturday, October 22, Tim and I left Columbus in the late afternoon with Tim's 14 year old son Austin for a trip to Gettysburg. This was Austin's first trip to Gettysburg. We had planned on leaving Sunday morning, but decided to take advantage of the beautiful sunny weather and get to Gettysburg sometime around midnight so we could start off first thing in the morning for a full day of touring.  I was sky high because my son Pete had won the Ohio High School Central District Cross Country meet that day in only the fourth race he had ever run (it's a long story, but suffice it to say that he is an extraordinarily fit soccer player). As we drove east on Route 70 through Ohio, I kept getting phone calls from friends who had heard the news about Pete, so Tim and Austin got to involuntarily share in the excitement via my Bluetooth device.  As the sun set, we started to look for a dinner place, and we stopped in Belmont after seeing a sign for Schlepp's Family Restaurant. This place was a great little find, with wonderful comfort food in a small town, back country environment.  There were a lot of local folks and deer hunters in the dining room. 



Tim then drove the rest of the way, and we got to Gettysburg about 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. We had not made a hotel reservation because we figured it was out of the main tourist season.  Unfortunately, we did not foresee homecoming for Gettysburg College and a dog show. Therefore, we made four stops before finding an open room in a old motel on the Emmitsburg Road south of the battlefield park. The room had very little heat and some very interesting colors of bathroom fixtures, but there were two beds that we got into around 2:00 a.m. and managed to get a pretty good nights sleep before waking at 8:00 am.

After packing up, we ventured north on the Emmitsburg Road to Friendly's and ate a hearty breakfast.  We then headed over to the "new" Visitor's Center, which Tim had previously toured but which neither Austin or I had seen.  We parked in the expansive parking lot and then headed into the Visitor's Center, but not before Tim snapped a few photos.


We decided to browse the bookstore (where we got our stamps; Austin too!), see the film, view the Cyclorama and then tour the museum before heading out onto the battlefield with a guide.  Tim and I did not want to overwhelm Austin with the usual Stamp Guy level of detail on a battlefield, so we thought a four hour tour in the afternoon would be perfect.  We approached the ticket counter and bought our tickets for the film & Cyclorama, and reserved a guide for a four hour tour starting at Noon. 



Austin liked the film and enjoyed the presentation of the Cyclorama, especially the detailed expanded portions of the painting that you view after you walk out of the climate-controlled area that houses the painting.  We all really enjoyed our time in the museum.  The former museum at the old VC was overwhelming in the number of weapons, shells, harnesses etc that were presented.  The new Museum is much more interesting in that it contains far fewer artifacts, but many have a story behind them (like the four chairs that General John Reynolds slept on the night before his death on July 1).  We didn't have time to completely finish the museum before it was time to grab a quick bite to eat before our Noon appointment, so there is more to see next time we go.

Tim went to the desk and approached a guide who was standing there in the familiar blue shirt. He was a man in his forties named Mark Troup, and he was in fact our assigned guide.  Tim and I explained to Mark that we wanted a general overview tour that focused on Austin, and that we would love to see things like witness trees, etchings left by soldiers and earthworks. Mark was enthused about the assignment, and commented that we were spending far more time in our introductory trip than most visitors do in their only guided tour of Gettysburg. We left to go out to my car, and Tim snapped a few more goofy photos on the way out of the VC, where a statue of Abe Lincoln repining on a bench proved to be an irresistible lure to our firefighter friend.

 
Mark drove us out of the VC parking lot and into town, and he immediately displayed his understanding of what would be impressive to a 14 year old by pointing out battle damaged homes in town. We then drove out to the First Day's battlefield as Mark related the story of John Burns, the War of 1812 veteran who picked up his musket and shouldered into line with Wisconsin men of the Iron Brigade to literally defend his home & hearth from the approaching Rebel horde.  We drove into Herbst Woods and Mark talked about the attack of the 26th North Carolina against the 24th Michigan, and then we looped back out by the Reynolds statue. Mark explained almost all of the action of the Union First Corps from this point of view, showing Austin where A.P. Hill's Third Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia deployed and fought from the West and where Confederate Richard Ewell's Second Corps came onto the battle from the North. Mark briefly talked about the attack on the second Railroad Cut that spelled doom for the Second Mississippi and the remainder of Davis' Confederate Brigade. Mark described the final attack on the Union line by Pender's Division, and pointed out the places in the shallow valley to our East where South Carolinians cracked the final line of the hard fighting Federal First Corps.

Mark then drove us into town and showed us some neat points of view to understand where the edge of town was at the time of the battle and place the buildings of Gettysburg College into their proper historic role.  We briefly stopped at Kuhn's Brickyard, and  Mark told the story of Amos Humiston and showed Austin the place where the poor Sergeant's body was found, clutching the picture of his children in his dead hand. Mark briefly described the action of the Federal 11th Corps, but he left it to Tim & me to show Austin the 11th Corps line later in the afternoon.


Austin and Tim at a witness tree on Culps Hill.
Mark then dove into his real passion, Culps Hill. Mark told Austin the story of Wesley Culp, as he drove us along the route that General Ewell rode to see the Union line on Cemetery Hill (and where he received a Yankee minie ball in his wooden leg). Mark showed us a new area where non-historic trees have been removed to show a great view of Cemetery Hill and its iconic gatehouse, and described the action on the night of July 1 when the 7th Indiana Infantry's presence on Culps Hill stopped an entire Confederate Division from occupying the heights (which the CSA officers had been led to believe was undefended). We then drove around Culps Hill to Spanglers Spring and ascended through the saddle and stopped as we began to climb the upper portion of the hill. Mark took us out of the car and presented a couple of witness trees, and then walked us down the side of the hill to some ledges where he described the Confederate's dilemma on the afternoon of July 2 and morning of July 3 as they tried to seize the entrenched Federal position along the brow of the hill. Mark made Austin crouch down behind the rock ledges and vividly described the difficulty of making a large group of soldiers coordinate an assault from such a cramped position, where raising one's head was a sure invitation to begin the journey to the Great Beyond.

After finishing up Culps Hill, we headed past Powers Hill (where Mark showed us how on-going tree clearing operations have revealed several monuments that were previously obscured from view), and then out Granite School House Road, across the Wheatfield and the Peach Orchard to the jumping off point for Longstreet's Attack on July 2. We parked the car along Confederate Avenue near the observation tower, and then walked out into the field by the Mississippi Monument. Mark wanted Austin to see Little Round Top and the rest of the Federal position from the Confederate point of view.  It was a brilliant plan, because the famous eminence does not look daunting at all from most places where the Rebels of Lafayette McLaws' and John Bell Hood's Divisions started their attacks.  We returned to the car and followed Confederate Avenue as it bends to the East, following Hood's line, until we reached the end near the Confederate Navy Monument (yes, I think it's bizarre too). We once again got out of the car so Austin could take in the view and Mark could explain the attack and defense of the area.


We then drove to and past Big Round Top and then through the saddle to the parking lot below Little Round Top. Mark took us to the 20th Maine monument and did a nice job on that familiar story, and then we returned to the car and drove to the parking lot at the top of the eminence.  Mark walked Austin out to the top of the hill, where the spectacular Fall afternoon presented the beautiful valley below, vividly illustrating the true height of Little Round Top, and the way LTR commands the whole southern portion of the battlefield. Mark showed us some etchings made int he rock faces marking the places where Charles Hazlett and Strong Vincent were mortally wounded. 


We then finished our time with Mark by driving to The Angle, which Mark described to Austin as the "Super Bowl" of the battle. Mark described Pickett's Charge, and then we took our guide back to the VC. After we dropped Mark off, we drove Austin around: we drove out to East Cavalry Field and explained the action there as we drove through; we spent a little more time at Kuhn's Brickyard and on the college campus, and then we drove the 11th Corps line north of town, and finally we drove over to the North Carolina and Virginia Monuments along Seminary Ridge and viewed them and the field as the sun set. 

We checked into the Days Inn (and got a nice discount from the friendly clerk) and then took Austin to the Farnsworth House for dinner.  We bought some beer at a bar, and then went back to the hotel room and watched the World Series.  The combination of the sunny day, the meal and the beer did their trick, and I was soon snoozing the night away.

In the morning, we got up, checked out and headed out to Little Round Top for a few minutes to view the remarkable 44th New York Monument (and so Austin could see LTR when it was not swarming with people). Then, we headed into town and went  to the David Wills House on the Gettysburg Diamond (and got a stamp). This site charges a fee, but it is nice and tells a great story about the post-battle actions of the citizens of Gettysburg to deal with the damage, wounded men, dead bodies of animals and men, and trauma that were caused by the battle. Of course, the site also features prominently the story of the Gettysburg Address; Lincoln spent the night before delivering the famed speech in a nicely restored upstairs bedroom at the site.

After we left the Wills House, we headed West, but would not tell Austin where we were going other than we were going to see sites from the 1700's, the 1800's and the 2000's.  We took Route 30 (the Lincoln Highway) west through Cashtown and Chambersburg, and then just stayed on  the Route until we got near the Shanksville, where we took the route into the Flight 93 National Memorial.  This new national park is truly a work in progress; virtually nothing is complete at the site. 



There is a long road into the site, and a rest room facility.  Then there is a plaza with some wayside exhibits, and then s small glassed-in enclosure that contains brochures and a stamping station. Then there is a long, curved paved walkway to a wall.  the wall contains the names of all the Flight 93 passengers and crew, and it is built along the flight path of the jet just before it impacted the ground.  The site where the plane hit is marked by a pile of rocks surrounded by some small US flags. 


The impact site is in the distance between Austin and me.
 The amazing thing is that this unfinished site, on a cold and rainy Monday, was absolutely thronged with visitors.  maybe it is simply the newness of the site and recent passage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, but whatever it is, it is bringing people to the Memorial in droves. 

We left the Flight 93 Memorial and then angled southwest through the rolling Pennsylvania countryside to the Fort Necessity National Park. It was raining pretty hard when we got there, so Tim left his camera in the car (thus, no photos). We toured the modern Visitor's Center and watched the informative film about the defeat and surrender of British forces under the command of George Washington (an inexperienced 23 year old who built an indefensible fort in a ludicrous place), and then the role the area played in the retreat of Braddock's force (Braddock's gravesite is nearby).  I toured the museum while Tim and Austin spent literally 15 minutes trying to buy some souvenirs from the incompetent desk clerk, who could not use a credit card, or take cash or seemingly breathe without an instruction manual. We then went outside in the rain, and took a quick tour of the fort site and read various wayside exhibits. however, because time was pressing and the weather was crappy, we decided to move on to our next stop: Friendship Hill, the home of Albert Gallatin, a Swiss immigrant who served as our third Secretary of the Treasury and various other diplomatic posts. Gallatin decided to try to build a model industrial community in the middle of the wilderness in southwest Pennsylvania shortly after the Revolutionary War, and the current sprawling home is the tangible evidence of his willingness to try to make this crazy dream a reality.

We got there after about another 45 minute drive, so we were very near to the end of the visiting house for the day.  We were the only visitors at the site, and the rain continued.  Many deer were grazing in the front yard as we walked up a hill and approached the house, but they scattered as we came nearer. The ranger in the house was a middle aged man who was warm, engaging, informative and funny, so we had a good time talking to him. We watched the movie (which, apparently was supposed to be a hologram of Gallatin talking to you but is now simply a film on a small screen) and then toured the house, got our stamps and were on our way home to central Ohio.


Gallatin was mainly a banker, but obviously he liked surveying too.