2019-04-13 Gettysburg Rally

Tom & Ella put on a rally to Gettysburg which was very informative. We camped at Pine Grove Furnace State Park a few miles from Gettysburg. Tom is a bit of a history buff and was a great tour guide of the battlefield. We did a number of things including walking the battlefield of Pickett's Charge, the museum and a Segway tour of the battlefields and more. Unfortunately the Segway tour guides weren't official historians/guides and were not allowed by law to explain anything of the battles. The Segwaying aspect of the tour was great but the history aspect...not so much. I brought my own Segway and used it. The tour guide and staff were great guys and put the group through a obstacle course on the Segways to get them all up to speed on using a Segway.

 

We met Abe Lincoln!

 The Lutheran Seminary and the cupola were Brig. Gen. John Buford observed the opening battle and the arrival of  I Corps and Maj. Gen. John Reynolds.

Some cannons and monuments...

 

Pickett's Charge!

This is the side of the battlefield where Pickett started his infamous charge. These three pictures are all the same monument.

The same monument as seen from the Copse of Trees...

 The battlefield -

On the opposite side of the Pickett's Charge battlefield is the focal point of the charge, the Copse of Trees. Along with the monuments and cannons at that location.

 

 

Where Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead fell in battle near the Copse of Trees:

 

Our group walking the Pickett's Charge battlefield, led by Tom

 Tom giving the group a history lesson on the battlefield!

This is cool! We met the artist/sculptor who did Gen. James Longstreet's statue! Here's the statue and the sculptor, Mr. Casteel: 

 

 

The rocky, boulder strewn Devil's Den, opposite Little Round Top

 Ella atop Devil's Den



Little Round Top as seen from Devil's Den -

The Pennsylvania monument and some views from atop it...

Breakfast at the Lincoln Dinner

 The train station opposite the dinner. This is where Lincoln arrived to delivery the Gettysburg Address!

 

Some more monuments -

 

 Tom delivering the Gettysburg Address right where President Lincoln delivered it!

The Gettysburg Address:

 

President Lincoln delivered the 272 word Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Some  camping pictures...

Sue, Terry & Georgia

 Larry & Lou

 Charlie Button and Jasper

 Georgia and Rick

 The furnace at the park

 Potluck -

 

A cool teardrop called a Vistabula -

 The group watch one of the installments of the movie Gettysburg: