Family Gathering
Today we spent the afternoon with my children, their families and their father and stepmother who have rented a large house for a family week here in Gettysburg. The house is huge (4600 square feet) with three floors, five bedrooms, a number of bathrooms, a nice basement den, loft, a screened in three sided porch on the main floor, etc. It is quite a ways out in the country and quite secluded but really lovely.
This week is our grandson, Garrett's 12th birthday and his father's graduation from the Fire Academy fire management program he has been doing for the past four years so we all got together today to celebrate. We will all attend his graduation on Friday morning at 8:00 (too early in the morning) at FEMA in Emmitsburg, MD which is very close to here. Kyle's (my son-in-law) parents are also coming from Texas for the graduation so we will be quite a group.
Not a great picture of my grandkids, but they were having fun eating birthday cookie.
On our way back to the campground, we drove around the town of Gettysburg which is quite interesting. So many old, old homes and buildings. Many of the homes are townhouse style and others are separate with about 5 feet between them. Some are brick and others are wood siding. All are close to the street and most are no more than about 12 feet wide. We recently learned that the reason they are so narrow is that owners were taxed based on the width of the house.
Gettysburg was originally named Marsh Creek Settlement and founded between two low ridges just north of the Mason-Dixon Line in the 1780's. It was renamed Gettysburg in honor of General James Gettys and was incorporated in 1806. The town center square is the crossroad of four major highways and was a stopping point for travelers as well as a strategic location during the Civil War.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Gettysburg National Park
Today we go to the Battlefield Visitor Center where we purchase a CD and dramatization of the Battles that took place here in Gettysburg. The battles that took place on July 1-3, 1863 were the most important and hotly contested of the Civil War. There were 51,000 casualties and it was the bloodiest battle of the war.
Returning to our car, we begin our 31 mile drive around town, through town and down one way narrow wooded roads and along cultivated open fields to view and understand what transpired here. There are 1,300 monuments, cannons, markers and statues throughout the Park. This is one of Robert E. Lee
Many states have erected monuments in the park including Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The Eternal Light Peace Memorial dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 75 years after the Civil War with 1,800 Civil War veterans present is very thought provoking with its inscription reading "Peace Eternal in a Nation United."
The drive takes over 2 hours and there are many places to stop, contemplate and view strategic places where events took place. It is hard to believe such devastation took place here when you see the beauty and tranquility of the landscape before you.
We did not complete the tour today but will continue another day this week. There are so many other historic places and museums to visit and we will have to pick and choose where else we go.
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