620,000

Leaving Crosswicks, NJ we headed west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to south central PA and the town of Gettysburg.  It sits in a shallow valley surrounded by low ridges and mounds covered with stately oak, maple and elm trees.  Ten different roads intersected there.  It was the availability of that high ground and the ability to bring in supplies on the roads that prompted General George Meade’s decision to engage the 75,000 strong confederate army in that place on July 1, 1863.  Three days later the Union Army prevailed and 7000 men lay dead in the woods and fields around the town.  During the 4 years of the war some 620,000 men died – the price of keeping the country together and assuring that slavery did not expand to the new western states.  I cannot get my head around that number.  There’s something about visiting a battlefield.  Whether the Nez Perce surrender site in MT or Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, the realities of war come a bit closer and overshadow the banal rhetoric of glory and triumph.  The oldest Lutheran Seminary in the US is located here.  During the Gettysburg battle both sides used the cupola on the tall building as an observation tower.  Afterword the facilities was used as a field hospital.  Caledonia State Park afforded us a night’s respite.  Our campsite was nestled on a hillside in Pennsylvania’s South Mountains just west of town.  It rained for the first time on this trip – the bad news.  We stayed dry – the good news.  On to Washington DC.

Pictures: Gettysburg-the town, Where the campaign started, Sober Reminder, Part of the National Cemetery, Location of Gettysburg address by Lincoln, Woods near the Visitor Center