Gettysburg

The North Carolina Memorial on Seminary Ridge

In case you did not know today is the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War battle at Gettysburg. I never fail to forget about it because my interest in this battle is what set me on the course towards loving history. The details are fuzzy, I may have been 9-10, but I remember my mom coming home from work one day with a video-tape and on it was a recorded copy of a movie given to her by a co-worker. It was Gettysburg, produced by Ted Turner and directed by Ron Maxwell, and I remember watching it together.

The scene which set the hook and captured my imagination was the depiction of Pickett’s charge. This was the pivotal moment of the entire war and has been called the high-water mark of the Confederacy, never again would the South come so close to winning the war. But as I said I was only 9-10 and did not fully grasp what was at stake, what I did understand was 15,000 North Carolinians and Virginians marching over roughly a mile of open ground, exposing themselves to fire the entire way to Cemetery Ridge.

The Virginia Memorial on Seminary Ridge, Robert E. Lee on his horse, Traveller.

Since then I have read quite a bit about the war and have been to several battlefields, some of them more than once. I don’t read as much about it now as I used to, but it remains my favorite period of history to read about to this day. Yet the thing I still do not understand after all this study is how so many men could willingly lay down their lives for the cause of Southern Independence or Union. I would like to think I would be capable of laying down my life for my family and for Jesus Christ but I have a hard time picturing myself laying down my life for anything else.

Some of the fiercest fighting occurred around the rocks of Devil’s Den. The two people on top of one of the rocks give you a sense of the scale.

Roughly 43,000 men were either killed or wounded at Gettysburg, when compared to modern warfare today that is almost incomprehensible. So do yourself a favor and at least try to understand what happened there. Watching Gettysburg or reading the Pulizter winning historical novel upon which it is based, “The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara wouldn’t be a bad start.

• The wikipedia article on Gettysburg.
• The New York Times Disunion blog post about the writing of the Killer Angels” and the same blog’s post which reflects on what Gettysburg proved.
• Amazon Store links to “The Killer Angels” and the blu-ray edition of “Gettysburg” (I’m not being paid by Amazon to link you to those pages).
• All photos in this post were taken by me in my most recent visit to Gettysburg in 2008.

Confederate General James Longstreet’s memorial. This is one of the newest memorials on the grounds, the success of “The Killer Angels” and the movie Gettysburg is credited with renewing interest and motivating the placement of his memorial statue.