162 years ago this year, the first three days of July saw the largest battle ever fought in North America. General Lee’s Confederate Army clashed with General Meade’s Union Army during the American Civil War.
More than 170,000 soldiers converged on the sleepy hamlet of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and fought for three days with determination to destroy each other.
When it ended in the waning hours of an afternoon on July 3rd, there were more than 50,000 casualties. The Confederate army was forced to retreat from northern soil.
Although the war would last for nearly two more years, the South’s chances for dissolving the Union would never again reach the heights they had at Gettysburg.
The Quiet Fields
Standing on a grassy knoll, I was looking southeast across a dormant cornfield bordered by a split rail fence. The air was crisp, but a bright sun in a cloudless sky allowed for shirt-sleeves on a spring afternoon.
A stand of oak and maple trees broke the horizon, their leafless limbs reaching heavenward like so many skeletal appendages.
It appeared as any Pennsylvania farm field might, slowly awakening from a winter’s sleep, save the two massive bronze statues towering over the countryside, ringed by forbidding, black cannons.
Kathy, my wife, and I stood on McPherson Ridge near Chambersburg Pike in the shade of those statues, less than a mile from Gettysburg.
A Hometown Hero
As I looked about the nearly empty fields, save for a handful of fellow visitors and an occasional car speeding into town along the Pike, I couldn’t help but wonder if Gabe Durham’s thoughts had leaned as bucolic as mine when he had gazed across the same fields.
Corporal Gabriel Durham lies peacefully in a cemetery in my hometown beneath a nondescript grey granite marker.
Until a few years ago, when a few Civil War enthusiasts placed a bronze plaque noting his role in the war, it would have been easy to ignore the stone with nothing but a name and dates.
Corporal Durham, a newspaper editor from Kankakee, IL, served with the 12th Illinois Cavalry and was one of, some say the first, casualties of the Battle of Gettysburg.
I am not related nor do I know any Durhams, but there is a slight pull from the past, a certain pride, albeit romanticized, in the knowledge that the Midwestern boy from your birth town served, and unfortunately, perished in the greatest battle this continent has yet seen.
Gettysburg National Military Park can create those emotions.
Gettysburg National Military Park Tours and Tickets
The Beginnings
Beneath the 15-foot-tall granite and bronze statue of cavalry commander Union Brigadier General John Buford, we stood where the first shots opened the battle.
Approximately 150 yards away, along Reynolds Avenue, a monument to the 12th Illinois Cavalry stands, which notes Durham and three of his comrades, all casualties.
All around me were quiet farmlands, and nearby was McPherson’s barn, a stoic survivor of the conflict. On the horizon stood the town of Gettysburg.
A small Pennsylvania farm community thrust into a conflagration of unimaginable ferocity. This was our first pilgrimage to the 6,000 acres of the famed National Military Park.
The Gettysburg Museum and Visitor’s Center
My momentary musings had detoured us from our drive on Chambersburg Pike to our eventual destination of the park’s Museum and Visitor’s Center.
The museum’s 20,000 square feet features artifacts of the Battle of Gettysburg, exhibits that delve into the causes of the war, and explore the hardships of the men involved.
Imagine wearing heavy wool clothing and leather shoes on a hot, July day while hefting a ten-pound gun and some 80 lbs. of ammunition, food, water, and other necessities.
We explored exhibits that displayed an unimaginable collection of artifacts, many recovered from the battlefield itself.
A bullet-pierced tree trunk, uniforms and tent fixtures, artillery pieces, and a wide variety of weapons and ammunition.
The museum houses 1.2 million artifacts, manuscripts, and artwork, which seemed to enthrall even the youngest visitors and definitely kept hardcore enthusiasts, like myself, engaged.
However, what really intrigued me was seeing the famed Gettysburg Cyclorama.
The Gettysburg Cyclorama – A Stationary Movie
A New Birth of Freedom, an informative 22-minute film narrated by actor Morgan Freeman, was our introduction to the Cyclorama.
Although I very much enjoyed it, I did not realize how enlightening it was until Kathy commented that it helped to clarify the war for her better than anything previously.
Afterwards, we were ushered into one of the most stunning aspects of the museum. The $103 million museum and visitor center is home to the restored cyclorama, a 377-foot circular painting capturing the last day’s final assault, known as Pickett’s Charge.
Created in 1884 by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux and a team of 20 artists, it is 42 feet high and weighs 12.5 tons.
As we stood on a raised platform in the center of the massive spherical room, a narrator described the intense fighting as lights illuminated portions of the giant painting and sounds of battle emanated from a distance.
It is difficult to describe how impactful the painting is. Long before moving pictures became the norm, the cyclorama was a stationary movie that immersed the viewer in the action.
Spotlights highlighted scenes of heroic men in moments of triumph and despair, smoke-enhanced explosions and sound effects enveloped us, giving life to the artwork.
We felt as though we’d been dropped just behind the Angle’s stone wall at the apex of the assault, wondering who will prevail.
The Author and The Restoration
Afterwards, we were lucky enough to meet Chris Brenneman, who, with Sue Boardman, co-authored The Gettysburg Cyclorama, an in-depth look into the creation and restoration of the grand masterpiece.
We found him to be a jovial personality with an encyclopedic knowledge of the battlefield. He was gracious enough to sign our just-purchased copy of his tome.
He explained that the huge painting was almost lost to history. The vast canvas, which once entertained hundreds of thousands in the 19th century, was found in 1904, decaying in a lean-to shed at the back of a vacant lot, forgotten by all but a few.
Several starts-and-stops over the years at trying to restore it finally resulted in a multi-million dollar effort in 2004 that generated the current masterpiece.
Afterwards, our imaginations having been further stoked, we headed out to the battlefield before daylight left us. Visitors can experience the park through a self-guided 24-mile auto tour that includes 16 stops in the park plus Historic Downtown Gettysburg (David Wills House and Gettysburg Train Station).
With a battlefield map in hand, we left the museum and headed down the trail.
High Above the Battlefield
The sun was low in the sky, which was somewhat appropriate as I drove us to Culp’s Hill. Occupied by Union troops, it was the critical right flank of the Union defensive line at Gettysburg and the so-called “barbed” portion of what is described as the “fish-hook” line of defenses.
It saw continuous fighting all three days, but it was the fateful decision not to make a final night attack on the first day that may have sealed the South’s fate.
As I walked the trails and admired the various monuments, I imagined the determination needed as spent, tired men grappled over the rocky, heavily wooded hill that seemed nearly impenetrable.
Monuments honor the various brigades and their positions on the field. There are approximately 1,328 monuments, markers, and memorials throughout the park.
Today, the summit of the hill is topped with a 60-foot-tall observation tower. After climbing seven flights of stairs, we were presented with a spectacular view of the battlefield. I found myself pointing out landmarks and reciting troop movements to my very patient wife.
Finally, with reluctance, we drove into the picturesque downtown of Gettysburg and checked into the Hotel Gettysburg located on Lincoln Square.
The hotel is steps away from the David Wills House where President Abraham Lincoln spent the night and polished his Gettysburg Address.
Soldier’s National Cemetery
Early the following morning, against a cold northerly wind that had covered the fields in frost, we made our way down Baltimore Pike to East Cemetery Hill.
A tour guide with a small group of like-minded enthusiasts was discussing the heavy fighting near the Evergreen Cemetery Gatehouse.
Tearing myself away from the conversation, we went on to The Soldiers’ National Cemetery.
Located on Cemetery Hill, it was here at a ceremony dedicating the hallowed ground, four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, that President Lincoln delivered those words that he felt had little merit.
Instead, it became one of the most famous speeches in American history, “The Gettysburg Address.” The memory of Lincoln permeates the area.
At the center of the cemetery stands the Soldiers’ National Monument with Union gravesites fanning out in a semicircular fashion from the base of the Monument.
The cemetery contains the graves of over 3,500 from the battle, including the graves of 979 unknowns.
As much as I wanted to explore the rugged, rock-laden Big and Little Round Tops, the focal point of the second day’s conflicts, both were unavailable during our visit due to road repairs.
We did stand near the large, strewn boulders of The Devil’s Den, walked through the remnants of the Peach Orchard, and stood upon the Wheat Field before arriving at Cemetery Ridge.
The Apex of Pickett’s Charge
Cemetery Ridge is barely 40 feet high. It is here that you find the Angle’s stone wall and the thicket of trees whose presence provided a landmark to guide the attacking Confederates.
It is where the Union, in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, turned away the final impetus of the rebel onslaught.
We had to stop at the State of Pennsylvania Monument, which is the largest monument on the Gettysburg battlefield. The tip of the sword of the statue of Winged Victory is 110 feet high. A spiral staircase took us to the roof of the monument with its panoramic views of the battlefield.
Our final stop was Seminary Ridge, located west of town.
The High Water Mark
Standing on Seminary Ridge beneath the towering, 41-feet-high Virginian monument topped with the statue of General Lee and his horse, Traveler, I gazed incredulously across the fields towards Cemetery Ridge and what were the Union lines.
From here, the final day’s massive attack, known to history as Pickett’s charge, against the Union’s center commenced. Approximately 12,500 men advanced across open fields for nearly a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire.
In what is euphemistically referred to as the “high-water mark of the Confederacy,” they crashed themselves against the center of the Union lines at the place called the Angle near that group of trees. The Union broke the attack and drove them back with horrific casualties.
The Quiet Battlefield
Today, the ebb and flow of the battle is marked by stunning, heroic statues commemorating individuals, regiments, and climactic actions throughout the three days.
The outsized bronzed statues create such a beautiful tableau across the silent fields that it is easy to forget that there was nothing beautiful about the events of those early days of July in 1863, nor for those who lived it.
I was reminded of the famed historian Shelby Foote’s thoughts on the attack:
If I had been in one of Pickett’s regiments and they had told me what we were going to do and I had had a look at that field and have seen that ridge nearly a mile across the way and all those guns and all those soldiers, I would have said I don’t think we ought to do that General.
Of course, they did go. The Battle of Gettysburg had begun the slow path to victory for the Union and marked the end of the greatest conflict in American history. The scale of the struggle, the size of its battles, and the number of casualties were unparalleled. It is a struggle that still resonates.
As we drove out of town, past the Visitor’s center and its seated bronze of President Lincoln, the apropos words of his Address came to mind, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
If You Go
Gettysburg National Military Park is located in Adams County, Pennsylvania.
1195 Baltimore Pike
Gettysburg, PA 17325
Gettysburg National Military Park Pennsylvania
Gettysburg Museum & Visitor Center
Gettysburg Hotel
A Park Map and Guide is available at the information desk of the Visitor’s Center. This brochure offers suggestions for seeing the battlefield, including the self-guided auto tour, driving tips, walking trails, and a brief overview of the battle, the Gettysburg National Cemetery, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
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