Gettysburg
Last week we spent two amazing days in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and had one of the best experiences of our trip so far. Gettysburg of course is the location of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War (one of the bloodiest wars in history) and is regarded as a critical turning point in that war. It is also the location where one of the most famous speeches in history was delivered.
First a bit of background…
In the summer of 1863, after two years of war, the momentum was with the South. To press home his advantage, Confederate General, Robert E Lee decided to take the war to the northern states and invaded Pennsylvania. The Union and Confederate armies encountered each other northwest of Gettysburg and a three-day battle ensued. The fortunes of each side fluctuated throughout the battle until the high ground occupied by the Union, and a final, fatal infantry charge swung the balance decisively in the Union’s favour and saw the Confederates retreat back to the South.
The American Civil War was the first truly industrialised war ever fought. Advances in weaponry, particularly riflery and the development of handguns, as well as the ability to mass-produce weapons, changed the tactics of war forever and set the scene for the First World War and the mechanised warfare of the 20th Century.
These technological developments also resulted in a horrific casualty rate. New weapons caused terrible injuries that the medical knowledge and equipment of the day could barely deal with. Faced with the results of lead shot that expanded inside a soldiers body, the surgeon’s only option was amputation – without anaesthetics or antibiotics. If the wound was in the stomach, there was no treatment option and the soldier was left to die.
Gettysburg has many stories to tell about what was it like for the soldiers who fought in this war and for their families – from the letters of dying soldiers writing home for the last time, to the hundreds of civilians who came to the town in the days following the battle searching for husbands, brothers and sons, to the terrible aftermath for the townspeople left to deal with thousands of dead and wounded and the need to rebuild their town and community.
Today Gettysburg is a picturesque town of historic buildings at the centre of a national park preserving the scenes of the battle as well as numerous cemeteries and memorials. It’s economy is soundly based on tourism with lots of gift shops, antique shops, and more museums than we’ve ever seen before in one place. People dressed in period costume and civil war uniforms are a common sight.
We stayed for two nights at a gorgeous B&B, the Lightner Farmhouse, which was used as a Union field hospital during and after the battle (as was just about any building of any size at the time). Our plan was to spend Saturday touring in and around the town and battlefield, and then to set off Sunday morning on a leisurely drive back to Princeton, taking in other sites and towns on the way. And so on Saturday morning, after breakfast and a walk through town, we decided to visit the museum at the brand new visitors centre before driving along the standard tour route of the battlefields following a pre-recorded CD audio tour.
Now we don’t know about you but usually two hours is about as long as our stamina holds in a museum. Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves at the end and discovered that four hours – yes four whole hours – had passed! Using static, audio-visual and interactive displays, the museum slowly unfolded the story of the war, the battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath, as well as the often tragic stories of the ordinary people caught up in it. We were staggered by what our watches told us as we got to the end, which indicates how well-designed and engrossing this museum was. One of the best we’ve ever been to anywhere in the world.
So it was rather later in the day than planned when we finally set off in our car for the battlefield tour (after yet another delay picking up urgent supplies in town – namely a bottle of champagne for pre-dinner drinks back at the B&B – I’m sure you can all appreciate the urgency). After visiting the key scenes of the first day of the battle, it was clear that we were going to need another day.
So Sunday was spent following the tour route around and through the town while listening to the unfolding the story of the battle and it’s aftermath. There are incredible stories at Gettysburg of courage, stupidity, mistakes, and sheer good luck. Seeing the terrain helps to make sense of what happened and why. One of the final stops on the tour is at the site of ‘Pickett’s Charge’, the Confederates’ last desperate attack on the centre of the Union line. There we heard how thousands of soldiers marched in formation across almost a mile of open fields under direct Union artillery fire. Wherever the artillery landed, large gaps opened up in their ranks but over and over again they regrouped, closed ranks and kept marching. Those who survived the artillery finally got close to the Union line which was protected by a stone fence. Then they faced rifle-fire at almost point blank range and were finally overwhelmed. Only one in four made it back and afterwards the field was strewn with thousands of dead, dying and injured. It was impossible to hear that story and picture it in front of us and not want to weep at the ugliness and suffering and sheer stupidity of war, or be amazed at the incredible determination and courage people can show in the most terrible of situations.
As we drove home to Princeton on Sunday night we talked about what we’d seen and learned and reflected on why we had found Gettysburg so interesting and so moving. in the end what we decided was that from every perspective – from the point of view of military history, the strategy of warfare, the development of weaponry and military tactics; to countless individual stories of suffering and courage; to the larger historical picture in which the war was fought, the reasons people gave their lives and the lessons that can be learned from that – Gettysburg is a fascinating study.
While all wars are ugly and tragic, sometimes the reasons people fight make a difference and the American Civil War is one of the few wars in history driven by a higher, even noble, cause. While the ostensible reason for going to war was the preservation of ‘the Union’, the driving issue that led the southern states to secede was slavery. Six months before the battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln issued the ‘Proclamation of Emancipation’ and established the ending of slavery as the clear cause for which this war was being fought.
We finished our tour of Gettysburg at the cemetery dedicated by Abraham Lincoln four months after the battle and where he gave his famous address. In thirteen sentences Lincoln captured the essence of what the fighting was all about and defined the task facing his nation. Lincoln described the war as a test of whether this nation, or any nation, dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’ can long endure. You don’t need to be American to appreciate the significance of this test, or realise that in some form or other all countries and people will be tested in their commitment to equality. Lincoln also said it is up to the living to ensure that a noble cause, for which others have given their lives, should not fail. The challenge, he said, was to bring forth ‘a new birth of freedom’ a challenge seems as relevant today as it was in 1863.