OUR DAY AT GETTYSBURG

Mr. and Mrs. COMMON CENTS decided to do something we have been wanting to do for some time. Instead of standing in a book signing line for six hours, waiting to meet Mark Levin (last Sat), we road tripped 80 miles north to Gettysburg, PA. At Gettysburg we drove around some on our own, took a 2 hour narrated bus tour and visited their new visitor center. As you know Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War. Gen Robert E. Lee let his Army of Northern Virginia, 75,000 strong in an invasion of the North in June of 1863. He was opposed by some 90,000 soldiers of the Union's Army of the Potomac. For three bloody days July 1 - July 3 the two great armies clashed in the bloodiest battle waged in our hemisphere. Several times history hung on a razor's edge, literally minutes saved the Union Army at times. Some things I learned on the tour: There are over 1,300 monuments on the National Park, between 6 million and 9 million rounds of ammunition were fired, there were 51,000 causualites but only one civilian died, the park itself is over 6,000 acres and the reasont the two armies met at Gettysburg is Lee's army had heard there were shoes available there and despearatly needed them. Some pictures of the site:

The view from the top of Little Round Top. In the rear are the Union Lines

Little Round Top: Scene of some of the heaviest fighting on the 2nd Day.

The High Water Mark of the Confederacy: This is the focal point of Picket's Charge, where General Pickets Virginians broke through the Union Lines on the 3rd day and the spot where the fate of a nation hung in the balance. Confederate General Armistead was morally wounded at the spot where the granite monument is on the left.

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For you History Fans two books that my friend Tom highly recommends: