Saturday morning we left our hotel near Hershey around 7:00 am to be at the Gettysburg visitor center when they opened at 8:00. We walked around inside for a while trying to figure out where to purchase the car guide booklet & cd's & during our search we heard there would be a park ranger giving an overview talk about Gettysburg at 9:00am. They said it was good for first time visitors & that's what we were so we sat & listened. It was very informative & this dude knew a LOT about the battle but I found all the names & locations to be a bit overwhelming. (Little did I know this would be a sign of things to come...)
Gettysburg is over 6000(!) acres & there are a variety of ways to tour it - there's a bus tour, you can 'hire' a park ranger to come in your car w/ you to give you a personal tour or you can do the self guided car tour. We're the self guided car tour kinda people & one of B-rad's Facebook friends had told us the car tour was cool & that was good enough for us.
Outside the visitor center (which is very new{built in 2008}) is a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln... (I mean lets be honest - Gettysburg is synonymous w/ Honest Abe...)
and the Gettysburg address.
We stuck the CD in the car in the parking lot (like we were instructed to do in the booklet) & after a short overview of how it would work, it told us to pull out of the parking lot & turn right & follow the signs for the car tour. There were 3 different options of tour you could do: short, medium & long (we chose the 'long' to get the full Gettysburg experience) & there was a map telling you which number on the cd you should be at for each stop. I must say I was VERY impressed w/ how simple it was to keep up w/ where we should be stopped & making it match the 'chapter' on the cd. The route was also lined very clearly w/ markers for the auto tour & there were markers to denote which stop you were at that corresponded w/ the map in the booklet.
So like while you drive from place to place the CD is telling you stories about Gettysburg--& most the time the story corresponds to the area you are driving through at the time. Once you get to the stop it tells you , 'ok you're stopped at xyz & this is what happened here. Now you can get out of the car to look around.'
Easy breezy!
I can't begin to tell ya'll how many monuments & statues & various other relics lined the roads.
This is the Virginia memorial to Robert E. Lee. Everyone knows who he is, right?
I tried to take pics of the placards for the memorials because I knew I would NEVER remember what any of them were.
This is Little Round top & it was a pivotal place in the battle. If you think I remember why, you're dead wrong. I do remember that this is the highest point in Gettysburg & some guy stood on a rock here & watched what the enemy was doing.
You're welcome...
Oh yes, this is where the North took the battle right our from under the South's feet. I remember hearing something about a Union soldier came across a Southern soldier & convinced him to tell him what they were planning & he told them they were going to take over this ridge & BAM the plot was foiled.
This is a barn that was there during the battle. You can see where a cannon ball went through it. Yep, they told me that on the car tour...
One of the stories was about the only civilian casualty of the war. Her name was Jenny-she was staying at her sisters house because she (the sister) had just had a baby & she was helping to care for her. She was making bread in the kitchen for the soldiers & told her mother to start the fire. A rogue bullet came through the door & hit her in the back. As her mom came in to tell her the fire was going, she saw her daughter fall to the floor & die. (I think I remember a picture of the door w/ the bullet hole in our guide booklet?) The soldiers ran in astonished at what had happened & told them to evacuate but Jenny's mother refused to go w/out her. The soldiers carried her body to the basement & that's where the family stayed until the battle moved on.
(that was the 6.3 second edition - the story on the cd took about 23 days to tell...like I said - it's very thorough...)
This tree is called 'the witness tree' & it's right across from the barn. It was there during the battle & stands tall still today.
Ok-so after about 3 hours of touring I was OVER Gettysburg. I was sick of the stories & didn't care about the battles or the people anymore. However, we still had several stops left on our lovely cd & the very last one was the National Cemetery. This is where Lincoln gave his famed Gettysburg address. I found it confusing that there was a memorial set up here for it, but this is not the actual spot where he gave it.
THIS is the actual location where he gave the address which was about a 10 minute walk from the memorial above. They're doing some work on this statue that's why there's a fence around it.
Near the statue is a bronze plaque of the Gettysburg address in Lincoln's handwriting.
And YES the car tour tells you ALL ABOUT how he wrote it, where he wrote it, how he got to Gettysburg & whose house he stayed in when he arrived. I mean-it's very informative but I was done by then...
The National cemetery is also where 'only civilian casualty Jenny' is buried...but by hour FIVE when we arrived at the cemetery I did not CARE where Jenny was buried. I wanted food, I wanted a bathroom & I wanted to be home. (But NOOOOO, we still had a 2 1/2 hour drive to the Flight 93 memorial...)
I think one reason it took us so long is because we went on a Saturday so there were a lot of cars out there with us & trying to find a place to park at the stops was difficult. We also stopped too long at some of the stops which hurt us on our time budget. Towards the end we were like 2 minutes at a stop & sometimes didn't even get out of the car! We drove past a home that was there during the battle that was owned by a freed black man. He left when the battle drew near because he was afraid he would be 'captured' & made to fight. When the battle was over & he came home his house was still there. It is amazing to me that it's still there all these years later.
Do you think I have a picture? No, I don't - because that was around hour 4.5 & I did not care. It was white I remember that...
{Of course I regret that now, but at the time I can't even tell you how irritated I was. B-rad could tell you though - he knows...}
OK-so I know I haven't given the car tour a glowing review - but it really was neat to do. If you ever have plans to visit Gettysburg & want to do the car tour, PLEASE borrow our cd's & booklet. It was like $30 & we will never ever use it again. I would love for someone else to get to use it. Perhaps you will have learned from our perilous tail & will do the car tour smarter than us? If you do, I don't wanna know about it though...
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