After Harpers Ferry, Jessica and I spent the night in Frederick, Maryland. We did not at all take advantage of the cute little downtown with the river walk reminiscent of San Antonio, but we did enjoy driving through and admiring the brightly colored buildings.
Our destination today was to Gettysburg. We just weren’t that far away, and decided it was worth a visit. I didn’t really know what to expect. I had assumed it would be a museum with a large field attached that had some sort of walkway around it. How wrong I was. There is a museum, but there was a cost associated and a long line. You can pay a guide to drive your car around, telling you specifics of the battle, or you can pick up the self-guided map and visit the sites on your own. The road is a winding path over 20 miles long that meanders through the small town and surrounding fields and woods amongst the hundreds of memorials erected to specific generals, brigades and states where soldiers had come from. The experience was a somber one. Over 50,000 men gave their lives those three days in July over 150 years ago. The small town opened their homes after the battle to the wounded, but many died of their injuries in the coming days. The town rallied again to bury and identify as many of the dead as possible. It was at the dedication of the cemetery that Lincoln gave his profound Gettysburg Address, urging the nation to come together so that the lives of these men would not be in vain. Standing today where Lincoln had stood and said these words was incredible, but walking amongst the thousands of marked graves, many marked as unknown or simply with numbers was truly sobering.
I’m very glad we took the time to visit the park, but it was also a place I was not sad to move on from.
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