The small town of GETTYSBURG , thirty miles south of Harrisburg near
the Maryland border, gained tragic notoriety in July 1863 for the
cataclysmic Civil War battle in which fifty thousand men died. There
were more casualties during these three days than in any American battle
before or since - a full third of those who fought were killed or
wounded - and entire regiments were wiped out when the tide finally
turned against the South.
Four months later, on November 19, Abraham Lincoln delivered his
Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the National Cemetery. His two-minute
speech, in memory of all the soldiers who died, is acknowledged as one
of the most powerful orations in American history. Lincoln himself was
convinced that it was a "flat failure," and prefaced his remarks with
the words "the world will little note nor long remember what we say here
&"; you'll be muttering it in your sleep by the time you leave.
Gettysburg, by far the most baldly commercialized of all the Civil War
sites, is overwhelmingly geared toward tourism , relentlessly replaying
the most minute details of the battle. Fortunately, it is perfectly
feasible to avoid the crowds and commercial overkill and explore for
yourself the rolling hills of the battlefield (now a national park) and
the tidy town streets with their shuttered historic houses.
The Town
Pick just a couple of the numerous museums in town and follow the Travel
Council's fourteen-block downtown walking tour for a sense of the
history of the place. The National Civil War Wax Museum , 297 Steinwehr
Ave (summer daily 9am-8.15pm; rest of year daily 9am-4.15pm; closed
weekdays Jan-Feb; $5; tel 717/334-6245), uses dreadful dummies in its
displays on the lead-up to the Civil War, the Underground Railroad for
escapee slaves, abolitionist John Brown, and the famous Southern belle
spies Rose Greenhow and Belle Boyd. Across the National Cemetery in the
battlefield, there are yet more dummies in the Hall of Presidents and
Their First Ladies , 504 Baltimore St (daily: June-Aug 9am-9pm; Sept
9am-7pm; Oct, Nov & March-May 9am-5pm; closed Dec-Feb; $5.95; tel
717/334-5717), complete with pearls of presidential wisdom and stirring
patriotic music. The only civilian to die in the battle, twenty-year-old
Jennie Wade, was killed by a stray bullet as she made bread for the
Union troops in her sister's kitchen. The Jennie Wade House , next to
the Gettysburg Tour Center on Baltimore Street (daily: June-Sept
9am-9pm; Oct-Nov & Mar-May 9am-7pm; closed Dec-Feb; $5.95; tel
717/334-4100), looks exactly as it did on July 3, 1863, with bullet
holes in the front door and on the bedpost, an artillery shell hole
ripped through the wall adjoining the neighboring house, and a macabre
model of Jennie's corpse lying under a sheet in the cellar.
President Eisenhower, who retired to Gettysburg, is commemorated to the
west of the park at the Eisenhower National Historic Site , where his
Georgian-style mansion holds an array of memorabilia. The site is
accessible only on shuttle bus tours from the National Park Visitor
Center in Taneytown (daily 9am-4pm; $5.25; tel 717/334-1124).
The battleground
It takes most of a day to see the 3500-acre Gettysburg National Military
Park , which surrounds the town (daily 6am-10pm; free). The visitor
center on Taneytown Road (daily: summer 8am-6pm, rest of year 8am-5pm;
tel 717/334-1124) doubles as the best museum , with guns, uniforms,
surgical and musical instruments, tents and flags, as well as touching
photos of the 1938 Joint Soldiers Reunion. A thirty-minute,
painstakingly thorough electric map show ($3) plots the intricacies of
the battle; at the visitor center, you can pick up details of a self-guided
driving route , or a guide will join you in your car for a personalized
two-hour tour ($35). The guides are available on a first come, first
served basis, and the visitor center does not accept reservations, so
it's best to arrive just before it opens at 8am to secure a guide for
the same day.
Directly opposite the visitor center, the Gettysburg National Cemetery
contains thousands of graves arranged in a semicircle around the
Soldiers' National Monument on the site where Lincoln gave the
Gettysburg Address. Most stirring of all are the hundreds of small
marble gravestones marked only with numbers. A short walk away, the
Cyclorama Center holds a 356ft circular painting of Pickett's Charge ,
the suicidal Confederate thrust across open wheatfields in broad
daylight, and is accompanied by a recitation of the Gettysburg Address (daily
8am-5pm; $3). The earliest existing draft of the Address (not, as
commonly believed, scrawled on the back of an envelope) sits in a
hallowed cabinet in a dark room on the lower story. The battlegrounds
themselves, golden fields reminiscent of an English country landscape,
are peaceful now except for their names: Valley of Death, Bloody Run,
Cemetery Hill . Uncanny statues of key figures stand at appropriate
points and heavy stone monuments honor different regiments.
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