The Town and Cemetery

Setting out on Friday morning I knew it would be my last day to see anything I had missed in Gettysburg because I likely won't be returning for a very long time, if at all. First stop was the High Water Mark I had visited the previous day, and ran out of battery in my camera. I took pictures of the HWM, other monuments I had missed, and a few long range shots of the Pennsylvania Memorial (I could probably sit and take pictures of it all day). I would also like to note here that since the picture embeding process on this blog sucks, I will be placing all pictures at the end of the text, so If I have included a picture of any of the things I am mentioning now, that is where it will be. Anyway, I took my last steps off the the battlefield, and onto the cemetery.

The cemetery, located on, appropriately enough, Cemetery Hill, is filled with, as one might imagine, countless graves. Civil War graves. World War I & II graves. Graves from Korea, and Vietnam. Even the occasional Mexican War grave. Many of the buried did not die in actual combat, but rather years later, and were placed there, next to their brothers in arms. Also located in the cemetery are some monuments of note. There is the Gettysburg Address Memorial (don't know if that is the actual name or not), which is apparently the only known monument to a speech in the United States. It was though, after all, some speech. There is also the State of New York's memorial, and the Soldier's Memorial, commemorating the battle, and those lost. A bronze statue of General Reynolds rounds things off. I would now, however, like to take this opportunity to try and explain the imposing nature of these monuments. I noted when examining the New York Memorial that it was possibly the second most imposing of the state memorials, next to Pennsylvania's. Then, upon looking at the pictures, I found that one cannot really appreciate what it is like to stand next to one of these these behemoths. So, I want you to imagine this: you are standing in the middle of what is, for all intents and purposes, a giant field. You are looking out over the landscape. You see a tree. You see a fence. Then, suddenly, you are greeted by this massive stone structure just looming in the distance, jutting from the smooth, monotonous landscape. Taken aback, you move closer, startled by the severity that this object has bestowed upon the scenery. That is a bit of what it is like. Think about it. You don't just see massive obelisks and Napoleonic arches in the middle of wheat fields. That is part of what makes Gettysburg a special place to visit. Finally, I reached the last stop, Lincoln Square. It was a little shocking, going from the serenity of a military cemetery to a town center, but I had also been looking forward to this. Here was the famed Gettysburg Hotel, and many other shops of interest. The antique shops were particularly engaging. Here, you could go home with a real piece of Civil War history, if you so chose, which I did not. It was interesting to look though. In the middle of the square is actually a bustling traffic circle, which you do not see very often in towns of today. After exploring the square, the streets that branch from it, and examining some of the pre-war architecture, It was time to shove off. And with that, my three post series on my trip to Gettysburg comes to a close. It was, I think, an excellent way to spend part of my Spring Break, and I would go back in an instant, because as much as I saw during the time I spent there, I could probably spend another week exploring more things that I didn't get to see. There are, for instance, the countless museums within the town, the wilderness of Big Round Top, the other half of the cemetery I did not explore, the many side roads that lead God knows where, dotted with monuments. I also didn't get to go on a "ghost tour", which I was disappointed about, until I saw two such tours in progress. One group was standing in the backyard of a souvenir store, while the other in the parking lot of a 7-11-esque convenience stop. I am certain those are real supernatural hot spots... Anyway, I was very pleased at the amount of people visiting the park. We went in the spring to avoid the summer crowds, and we did, partially. There were a surpising amount of people there for this time of year. We had trouble finding a parking spot at the visitors center even. This is great though. It was heartening to see that many people spending their time in exploration of our nations history, and I think this is pivotal to future generations' understanding of the past. As long as people continue to visit the park, the great sacrafices that so many people of the North and South made will not be forgotten. That is just something I think is important, and that is all I have to say about Gettysburg.