Four Score and Seven Years Ago (Give or Take 150 Years)

On my way home from my Southern jaunt, I took a detour to check another

 historical site off of my dream list:

 Gettysburg.

 I can't do the history of this battlefield justice here in a little blog post--

it is worth reading up on it if you get a chance.

                                        I got there about half-way through my eleven hour drive.
                                 I had planned to just take a quick look around and get back on the road.
                                                       But, I couldn't tear myself away. 

I went inside the Visitor Center and watched a movie and 

took in the museum.

I am one of those people who wants to read every plaque and take in

every button....

...and buckle

This is a bullet that was stopped by a belt buckle--kinda cool.

Every pistol

and cannon ball

The pretty drum...

and other musical instruments.

I was surprised to see that Utah sent out 96 soldiers

to fight for the Union.

From the museum, I drove over to the battlefield and cemetery.

I had overstayed already but I didn't know if I would

ever get back there again.

I meant to take a few pictures and then hit the road.

But I kept walking.

Just one more monument to see...

One more artifact to look at...

A majestic equestrian monument dedicated to the memory of 

Northern Major General George Gordon Meade

(Read more about it here)

Another plaque to read.

We have a son-in-law from North (the South shall rise again) Carolina so

I stopped to take a closer look at this monument.

The inscription made me cry and was a reminder of

the lives lost on both sides. 

Heartbreaking.

You can see how close the regiment was to the High Water Mark

during Pickett's Charge before they were stopped.

I lingered and wandered the battlefield as the sun went down.

 There is a feeling there that this

place is tragic and sacred. 

I cannot say it any better than

President Abraham Lincoln:

 Fourscore 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.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, “GETTYSBURG ADDRESS” (19 NOVEMBER 1863)