Humbling Past

Today, the Petersons and Joneses decided to take Mia and me to Gettysburg, the venue of the most iconic battles endured on American soil. Getting out of the big city into the countryside soothed my little soul. I love my job!

AH! where to begin on such a monumental day. Although I watched a brief documentary on Gettysburg, nothing could have prepared me for this tour. We signed up for an auto-tour, meaning our tour guide, Roy, joined us in our vehicle as we drove around to the many battlefields. Roy has been touring these fields for 45 years--since he was 19 years old. His passion for this country and American history is inspiring and definitely reignited my love for history, especially American history.

Today we beheld battlefields with the highest bloodshed known to America. We talked of battles where 20, 000 soldiers' lives were taken in the matter of hours. We are talking of men walking blindly into harms way as a result of the orders of imperfect generals. One mistake equates to thousands of men lost in a matter of minutes. No turning back. Everything to lose. We learned of heroes like John Reynolds and General Warren who saved the Yankees many times.

It is bewildering to think that the beautiful, peaceful fields we were venturing once held hatred and death only few will ever comprehend.

As a result, Gettysburg is forever living in 1863. Monuments line the horizon and cemeteries pave the roads. Confederate and American flags hang from windows in commemoration for the lives lost. There is a humbling spirit resting at Gettysburg--one in which I hope never to forget.

Mia holding a bullet shell. 

A piece of cannonball

New York Memorial 

(one of many memorials commemorating the lives of Union soldiers)

New York Memorial

 

Overlooking the peach fields and Gettysburg's bloodiest battlefield (day 2). 

20,000 men lost in four hours. 

Statue of General Warren--the man responsible for protecting Little Round Top. (The crucial position for the Union soldiers!)

Overlooking Pickett's Charge

Roy explaining Pickett's Charge, the last battle of Gettysburg.

Loving on Lincoln--what a man! 

The Gettysburg Address

Four score 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not 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 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.

Enough said.