Historic Ground

By Jim.

We did a dogleg leaving Connecticut.

One of our goals on the trip is visiting all 14 of the Presidential Libraries administered by the National Archives & Park Service.  At the first library we visited, Eisenhower’s, I was given a Passport that, if stamped at all 14, gets me a nice piece of swag.  It also will be a cool scrapbook item one of these days (assuming I ever do a scrapbook).

Back in the day, I made an annual pilgrimage to Hyde Park on President’s Day.  I found the place irresistible – the home of the greatest President since Lincoln, who led his country out of the Great Depression and to victory in World War II, and whose presence is still felt at his majestic estate on the Hudson River.  But as many times as I’d been there, we had to go again to get that Passport stamp, so Hyde Park was our first stop after leaving Westport.  I expected us to go through the motions, after having seen the place so many times.  Pleasant surprise – there’s a new visitors center, a revised presentation of the museum exhibits AND a really cool new statue.

FDR’s most famous line (from his first inaugural address) was, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”   As relevant as that still is today, we saw another quote that also resonated: 

Then we shifted gears from history to family by visiting Ginny’s nephew, Connor O’Hara, and his wife Alley and their toddler Caiden in Wayne, NJ.  It gave us a warm feeling to see a young family happily building their lives.  They’re living in their first house, they have a wonderful child and another on the way, and they’re flourishing in their careers – they have so much to look forward to.

After that family interlude, we drove to one of the most history-steeped places in America, Gettysburg, PA.

Gettysburg is the site of the most famous battle of the Civil War.  Before it was fought, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia won a series of battles in Virginia and Maryland.  Lee planned a daring invasion of Pennsylvania, starting in June, 1863.  His objectives were to seize munitions, crops and supplies to send to warn-torn Virginia and seize the nearby capital city of Harrisburg to put political pressure on the Union to seek a negotiated peace to the war.

The battle began on July 1, 1863.  Lee’s Confederates broke through Union lines and occupied the town.  Union forces retreated to defensive positions on the outskirts of town, which had the tactical advantage of being on high ground.  These positions were barely held by the Union (led by General George Meade, who had only been appointed by President Lincoln to this command the previous week) on July 2.  Confident of victory, Lee ordered a frontal assault on the middle of the Union lines on the following day, the deadly Pickett’s Charge, which was repelled by the Union (depicted here in an amazing cyclorama at the Visitors Centers).  

Lee’s men fell back, then retreated that night, escaping capture that might have ended the war right then and there.  Nevertheless, the Confederacy never recovered from the one-two punch of losing at both Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Mississippi on consecutive days (Vicksburg was Ulysses Grant’s first major victory, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River).  The war continued for 22 more months, but the tide turned towards the Union after July, 1863.  Lee’s aura of invincibility was shattered at Gettysburg.

The casualties from the battle were staggering – more than 7,000 American soldiers (Union and Confederate) killed, nearly 11,000 more missing and more than 33,000 wounded.  It was left to the 2,400 people living in Gettysburg to deal with the carnage.

The Soldiers’ National Cemetery, now called the Gettysburg National Cemetery, was established as the burial ground for 3,512 Union troops.  It was consecrated on November 19, 1863, at a ceremony attended by 15,000.  The featured speaker was a famous orator, Edward Everett, who spoke for two hours, describing the battle and its strategic context.  After Everett’s speech came President Abraham Lincoln, who had been invited to the ceremony to deliver “a few appropriate remarks.”  Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, only 271 words long, is perhaps the most famous speech in American history.  Everett subsequently wrote President Lincoln a letter stating, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Today, the battlefield sweeps around the town of Gettysburg.  The area immediately south of downtown is now a national military park.  There are over 1,300 monuments throughout the battlefield, placed by veterans groups and state legislatures in the places where their troops served.  

One hundred fifty-five years after the battle, the park and cemetery are somber places.   

The outcome of the Battle of Gettysburg and the restoration of the union after the defeat of the Confederacy are now taken for granted.  However, as we toured the battlefield (first on a tour bus and then by driving and hiking), we could see just how close the Confederacy came to victory.  A few minutes here and a few yards of ground there, and the outcome would have been different, with profound effects on the nation and the North American continent.  It’s sobering to realize how naive it is to take for granted our strength and stability, in these days when there is so much uncertainty about our liberties,  institutions and national character.

From southern Pennsylvania, we headed south to the Washington DC area to visit old friends and see some of the sights of our nation’s capital.  (Sorry, we’re a little behind schedule on our reports!)