Monday October 26, 2020. Gettysburg

Here are some pictures of the neighborhood that my cousin lives in .  It's beautiful here and all the houses have tons of land.  

Graham has an appointment with an Orthopedic on Thursday.  Poor guy.  His knee is destroyed.  We are praying the it is something that will heal on its own and not need surgery.  In the mean time, we got him crutches and a knee brace.  

Today we drove back up to Pennsylvania to go to Gettysburg.  The drive was about and hour and a half.  Not too bad.  Gettysburg was more than worth it.  

Our first stop was to the Gettysburg Museum.  My family and I learned SO much.  I don't believe that I was taught in history class all the things that I learned here today.  My heart was somber the whole time.  He head had a hard time wrapping itself around the battle and all the souls who died in a 3 day period.  51,000 souls dead in 3 days.  Can you believe that?  The Confederates against the Union.  The Confederates wanted to keep slavery and the Union wanted to abolish it.  There were many other reasons why the Civil War started but slavery was a big one.  

President Lincoln showed up for a picture with the kids. 

Graham got to be wheeled around in a wheel chair :))

President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

There were short films that taught us about each of the three days of the battle in Gettysburg.  We learned about the advances on both sides and the tactics they used in battle.  We learned about Seminary Ridge and Little Round Top.  We learned about all the communications used by the generals.  I was so amazed.  It was like we were thrown back in time and were watching the battle unfold in front of our eyes.  Asher commented that he liked learning about the battle this way.  Me too, Asher.  

We all knew what the Emancipation Proclamation was but to see it in its context brought more meaning to it for us.  

This basically explained the "Why" and "What"

The museum closed and we all left for a lunch break aboard Doug!!

Now it was time to go and drive through the battlefield spots that we had just learned about.  

This is Seminary Ridge.  The Confederates were here hiding in the trees preparing to advance.  

This is Little Round Top.  The Union had to defend this post.  They successfully won this battle because of their stance here at Little Round Top and because General Lee had a miscommunication on his advance.  

Rub his nose for good luck

Each state had their own monument to remember the men from their state.  This is the Pennsylvania one.  It is huge and incredible.  They actually named all the men from their state that battled.  

We were all pretty drained after this experience so we went for food at Friendly's.  We got hamburgers and ice cream.  It was a sweet end to a heavy day.  Thank you Tiffany for going with us and making it so much fun.