Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Yesterday I left Mt. Vernon around 12:30 and arrived in Gettysburg at 3:00 p.m.  

This museum and visitors center was the best yet.  I started with the film which gave an excellent account of the battles at Gettysburg.  After the film we were directed up stairs to a 360 degree panoramic photo experience complete with objects in the foreground to expand the experience. The proctor narrated the battles again while sound effects and lighting enhanced the storytelling.  Here are some of the panorama photos. 

The museum told the story of the entire Civil War era beginning with President Lincoln's presidential campaign and concluded with reconstruction and the civil rights movement.  There are several small video theaters throughout the museum each telling little bits of the timeline.  The space surrounding the videos display everything from newspaper headlines to artifacts such as military uniforms complete with hats, belts, canteens, knapsacks, knives, guns, and cups.  Some have information about the soldier, others do not. 

There a photo album with family photos of the two Presidents: Abraham Lincoln and the south’s president,  Jefferson Davis complete with their wives, children, and times lines of their life span.

The section on the Gettysburg address was incredible.  An actor's voice-over recording of the speech played on a loop in the while you could read the speech in Lincoln's handwriting on an electronic graphic copy of the original manuscript.  I learned that Lincoln was not the main speaker for the cemetery dedication.  He was suppose to just say a few words.  Edward Everett was the featured orator who went first and spoke for 2 hours.  There were opposing views about the content of Lincoln’s speech.  The newspapers from the south called it “silly."  The northerners thought it was "eloquent" and "timeless."

When the museum closed at 6:00 p.m., I visited the battlefield and cemetery.  The graves of the Union soldiers are organized by state with the state marker noting the number of dead.  The Confederate soldiers were left in shallow graves for 9 years until they were dug up and moved to southern cemeteries, mostly Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.  Only the Union soldiers are buried in the Gettysburg Cemetery because the cemetery is for the soldiers who fought to preserve the union not destroy it.  Some graves are marked as "unknown," others are marked with the name and rank of the soldier.  All the graves had American flags on them for Memorial day.