(Before todays blog, I want to let you know that I also entered blogs for Day 37 and 38 to get us caught up.)
Today we spent most of the day on a self-guided auto tour through the Gettysburg battlefields.
This as a very moving experience to see the hallowed land where over 52,000 casualties occurred in just three days.
Probably wouldn't even scratch her???
This monument was dedicated on the 75th anniversary of the battle... The government paid for any Civil War veteran to come... many did even though they were in their 90's and some were even over 100 years old. Men who were enemies 75 years earlier, shook hands across the rock breastworks and were united as Americans.
Deb took this photo of the woodlands where the Confederate Army hid prior to "Pickett's Charge" on the third day of the battle...
This is the Confederates view up the hill towards Little Round Top...
This is Deb as she looks down the slope from Little Round Top across The Den towards the Confederate position (see previous photo)... This uphill vantage point in combination with the Union sharpshooters and the added range of the cannon because they were shooting downhill, gave the Union Army the advantage to win this extremely bloody battle...
This rock wall in the foreground is known as the "High Water Mark" as it is the farthest point north that any confederate troops ever advanced. The tree line far in the distance is where Deb took the photo and Picketts Charge began as 15,000 Rebel troops marched shoulder-to shoulder, in a line over a mile and a half wide, toward the Union troops behind the rock "high water mark".Only 150 troops made it past the wall and they were eventually all killed by the amazed Union troops. The surviving rebels of General Lee's Army (over half of the 15,000 were casualties) began their retreat back to Northern Virginia that night never to return to the North.
After leaving Gettysburg, I drove Debra to Emmitsburg, Maryland to show her the National Fire Academy. They were preparing for the annual Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service held this weekend at the memorial on campus.
I looked for the bricks that I purchased to support the memorial back in 2004 when I attended the academy. The bricks were supposed to be in Section 17 but were placed in Section 18 instead (Both my father and I were #17 on our hiring list when we tested for Portland Fire in 1962 and 1978 respectively)... 
These are the bricks...
This is the National Fallen Firefighters Chapel...This has been a reverent day...
Tomorrow and Sunday we are going to visit Amish Country and do some cemetery research in Akron and the surrounding communities.
1 comment:
dear son and deb:
I really enjoyed reliving the
gettysburg tour via your blog. brought back a lot of memories. I was touched by seeing the bricks with our names on them and you honoring me! That made me tear up. That!s me!
I can never, for the life of me, understand why a general like Lee ever thought such an attack method could ever succeed. It was a slaughter, no doubt. I hope you enjoyed the visit as much as I did, Deb. Like you said, son, it is a reverent experience.
You will find when you visit Akron that many people are buried in the churchyards. When we were there we were informed that if you didn't already have a plot reserved it was not likely that you would be buried there. One thing that I observed was that so many of the headstones have worn so much from the elements that the inscriptions are barely discernable. The eight bedroom home that Olive's cousin lived in when I visited her while attending the Fire Academy was built by Dorothy's grandfather, I think. I had rented a "Rent-A-Wreck" in Emittsburg and drove the approx. 70 miles to visit her. She never invited me to stay overnight!
That time of the year there, about this time, it is almost impossible to find a room to rent around there. I was told there are, or were then, that there are over 11,000 rooms in the general area to rent but due to heavy tourist activity they are hard to come by. I wound up driving clear back to Emittsburg and returning the next day to visit her and she took me to lunch and then to the museum I told you about, the one via Ephrata. The thing I found interesting about the cousin's house,other than the fact that she had been born there and lived there all her life, was that the soft wood trim inside the house was made to look like hardwood. That was an art that seems pretty much lost these days.
Brigham young could do it and did. I hope you get to go Bird-In-Hand, PA. Stop in the general store look around. I bought a wide belt, two of them in fact, one black and one natural. One of the Amish farmers makes them of full thickness leather. I still use them.
I had a time pulling you up on Ken's computer tonight for some reason but finally got the job done. He got his deer today and he is pooped and in bed right now. It
is nearly midnight. He got a nice, big, doe. I saw a nice buck about 20 yards away but couldn't shoot because it was on posted land. Drats! Ken does not have TV service so I will miss conference tomorrow unless I can see it on his computer via lds.org. I'm anxious to hear who the new counselor to Pres. Hinckley will be and who the new apostle will be. Our new temple pres. is due next month. he joined the church the same year we did and served a mission in the Gulf States Mission, the mission our branch in Victoria,Texas, where you were born, Scott. So, I am anxious to to meet him.
Enjoy your tour of PA!
Love ya,
Dad
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