Yesterday was a great day. I arranged a road trip starting early in the morning up to Gettysburg. Three of us are history buffs and the other two were interested in the bike ride in the country. We had a great time. Gettysburg itself is a beautiful quaint little town surrounded by bucolic rolling countryside. The weather was pretty near perfect and the bike ride was the perfect way to see the battlefield. The route we took was listed at 13 miles, so not very long, but, with detours and add ons, we actually rode 19 miles. Interestingly, we had among us, 2 people who identify as Southerners (although I'm clearly pro-union), one northerner and one southerner who identifies as northern and one brit. My British friend and I had been talking about doing this trip for awhile. He and I and my very southern friend were looking forward this for weeks. She, the Mississippian was totally into it. Our little group proved to be a divided one. We had someone whose allegiance was confederate and whose politics are conservative (this is why she and I are not going to be dating, we get into too many political arguments). The other two women were more neutral about the war. We did have an interesting discussion over dinner that could have raised fault lines in our little group. But, the beauty of it is, that we all like each other and respect each other enough to actually listen and discuss and try and explain our positions without judgement or rancor.
It was really a great day and the ride was amazingly beautiful. There were stretches where we just didn't talk because the sun was shining and a cool breeze was flitting through the trees as we pedaled along the long confederate lines.overlooking the valley in which so many died. That was the greatest contrast for me, such a beautiful place being the site of so much pain and death and horror. At one point I was explaining how the minie ball, the bullet commonly used in that war, was soft enough to deform upon contact due to the heat of the muzzle and the velocity of the shot. The result was that it did a great deal of damage to soft tissue and created ghastly and usually fatal injuries. Every state that had soldiers there has a monument to it's dead and markers at the positions of its units duriing the battle.
Standing on Little Round Top and seeing the boulders behind which union and confederate troops tried to find cover, I couldn't help imagining the vicious fight that took place with wave after wave of confederate soldiers trying to climb the hill and push the union line off the heights. If they'd done that the South might have won the battle. The union troops, some having spent their ammunition reduced to fighting with knife and hurling rocks, withstood the assault. Pictures from the days after show a ragged carpeting of boulders and bodies. Yesterday, with kids and teenagers running around and older folks walking along the paths, it was easy to just sit back and enjoy the amazing vistas across the little valley. It was a paradoxical sensation for me and for the other history buffs who were more able to conjure the images of a valley of death.
It was really a great day and the ride was amazingly beautiful. There were stretches where we just didn't talk because the sun was shining and a cool breeze was flitting through the trees as we pedaled along the long confederate lines.overlooking the valley in which so many died. That was the greatest contrast for me, such a beautiful place being the site of so much pain and death and horror. At one point I was explaining how the minie ball, the bullet commonly used in that war, was soft enough to deform upon contact due to the heat of the muzzle and the velocity of the shot. The result was that it did a great deal of damage to soft tissue and created ghastly and usually fatal injuries. Every state that had soldiers there has a monument to it's dead and markers at the positions of its units duriing the battle.
Standing on Little Round Top and seeing the boulders behind which union and confederate troops tried to find cover, I couldn't help imagining the vicious fight that took place with wave after wave of confederate soldiers trying to climb the hill and push the union line off the heights. If they'd done that the South might have won the battle. The union troops, some having spent their ammunition reduced to fighting with knife and hurling rocks, withstood the assault. Pictures from the days after show a ragged carpeting of boulders and bodies. Yesterday, with kids and teenagers running around and older folks walking along the paths, it was easy to just sit back and enjoy the amazing vistas across the little valley. It was a paradoxical sensation for me and for the other history buffs who were more able to conjure the images of a valley of death.