Gettysburg History and Re-enactments

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania High 70 Low 46

Today started out rainy and cold. It was cool last night, which made for good sleeping. This afternoon it quit raining and the sun came out for a little while.

In the RV Park there was a Civil War re-enactment. There were tents set up and people dressed in period costumes. One of them told me that the average age of the soldiers in the Civil War was 14 years old. A lot of them enlisted because they were bored with farm life and thought it would be more exciting in the army. I looked it up on the internet, and there were over 600,000 casualties during the war. Not quite 10% were killed in the 3 day Battle of Gettysburg, over 51,000.

One of the men at the re-enactment, told us that the Turkey Buzzards we see in the area weren't native to this part of the US, but that there was so many dead animals and people that  the smell drew them to this area, and the ones we see now are offspring from them. He told us that the smell was so bad, that the people burying the dead had to wear masks covered with linseed oil to be able to be around them.

One of the Park Ranger told us that because of all the destruction and the fences down, that there were no crops planted the next year. It is hard to imagine how bad it was. The internet said over 3,000 horses were killed and didn’t say how many cattle. We drove through part of the battlefield and got some pictures of the old homes.

We then drove into Gettysburg, and the Heritage Center had another encampment set up, again with period clothing. We watched a short video about the War and the movement of the troops around the town. It helped to visualize where the different battles were fought and a little about the timeline. There also was a battle scene set up by the screen.

 

We next went to Lincoln Square and looked at some of the old buildings from the early 1800s. One of them was where Abraham Lincoln stayed the night before, and where he finished writing the
Gettysburg Address. It is now a Museum.

We then went to a Farmer’s Market and bought some more fresh vegetables. There was a basket of gourds that we thought were very different. Cindy, especially, like the blooming flowers and the pumpkins, giving us a feeling of fall.

 Thanks for visiting.