OT Bull Run & GB pics

[geofflambert]

camera location 3
panning left
The red arrow points to a plaque that is for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 11th Corps.

[geofflambert]

camera location 3
panning left
monuments marked

[geofflambert]

camera location 3
panning left

[geofflambert]

camera location 3
panning left
The black monument to the left of the storage tank in the distance is for the 11th Corps (US). The object in the center foreground is, I believe, a drinking fountain. The monument for the Pennsylvania Artillery is larger than it may appear. The side you can see has considerable engravings giving stats for each battery, # enlisted, # reenlisted, # killed, # wounded etc..

[geofflambert]

The other side of the PA Artillery Monument. I think that's actually some pretty nice stone carving there. The Elgin marble cutters might be envious.

[geofflambert]

camera location 4
Looking down the Baltimore Pike into town, taken from 100 feet in front of the Gate House. You can just see the edge of the monument for the 4th US Light Artillery Battery B.

[geofflambert]

Here's a skyview indicating the camera location for the following shot. The Culp's Hill Tower location is also noted.

[geofflambert]

camera location 5
Culp's Hill from Benner Hill. You can just make out the top of the Culp's Hill Tower. The Gettysburg National Tower is also pointed out.

[geofflambert]

camera location 6
Looking down East Confederate Ave. into town.

[geofflambert]

camera location 7
My notes say South Slope of Culp's Hill looking South. Don't know exactly where, but this pic shows features common all over the hill, namely trees and boulders. These boulders, again, likely deposited in one of the ice ages.

[geofflambert]

camera location 8
On the left you can see the Evergreen Cemetary Gate House. In the center is a statue of Gen. Hancock riding a horse. Down to the left of that is the base of the monument to the 4th Ohio Light Artillery Battery B. Generally speaking, you can get some idea of the wealth of each state by the size and number of its monuments. The Southern States monuments are fewer and smaller than the Northern States, but I noticed that West Virginia (where I was born) mostly just has little flat stones laid on the earth representing whole regiments. Mostly just coal miners lived (and live) there. Of course this is an unfair generalization, but I'm descended from Welsh coal miners and they were distributed here from KY through W VA to Pa (the Mesabi range).

[geofflambert]

camera location 9
Again, you can see in the center Hancock's statue, just to the right is the monument for the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery Battery B. To the right of that is the monument for the 14th Indiana. Small but a lot better than the W VA ones.

I'd like to mention here that I've heard that the estimates for total soldier deaths for the Civil War may be raised. They've long been put at about 600k to 625k, but the CSA kept very few records, and the estimates for them have included a lot of WAG and some SWAG. The estimates are likely to end up around 700k with much of the difference being added to the CSA. Much of this amount is due not to battle deaths, but the poor state of medicine and medical resources in the CSA to deal with wounds, heat prostration and diseases generally. This was a horrible, horrible war which I think even Napoleon would find staggering. I think it did come as a shock to the Europeans, giving them some idea of the potential power trajectory of the US.

The next batch of pics will begin at the Oak Ridge Tower which gives a good view of the area where the battle began and proceed from there.

[geofflambert]

I'd like to interrupt the flow here with a short treatise by an amateur (me) on the types of fencing you are likely to see at Civil War battle sites. The most common is the Virginia Fence, which tends to be zig-zag, and the other is the Kentucky Fence. Both are split-rail fences. Remember the legends of Abe Lincoln splitting rails? He was making one or the other of these. Split rails are triangular in cross section as they are made by driving wedges into tree trunks, resulting in a section of a circle or column. Kentucky fences in their more primitive forms used split rails and had 2 to 4 rails per segment. The form of these closely resemble the modern Kentucky fences, which you may be familiar with for their whiteness and because they enclose horse pastures, often thoroughbred horse pastures.
Much more prevalent were the Virginia fences, which came in many forms, but also used split rails. While the Kentucky fences used upright posts that were mortised out for the rails, Virginia fences were often just split rails laid atop each other, and the zig-zag pattern was only so these dubious constructions wouldn't fall down. These fences were called "Worm" or "Snake" fences and they were some times supported to a degree by more or less upright standards, in the best cases two crossed. Sometimes they were also built straddling a low stone wall.
Following are some examples of each. Originally, chestnut wood was preferred for these, but with the blight cedar was substituted. I believe that hickory was also used often.
This is supported Virginia fence.

[geofflambert]

This is actually pretty unusual in my experience, but it is a form of Virginia fence.

[geofflambert]

This is kind of a crudely supported Virginia fence.

[geofflambert]

This is a very nice example of Kentucky fence. While the rails are triangular, tenons were cut at the ends of the rails to fit in the mortises of the posts.

[geofflambert]

Perhaps a more typical example of Kentucky fence.

If you go back to camera location 6, you will see Virginia fence on one side of the road, and Kentucky fence on the other. Looks like Virginia fence uses a lot more wood and is less efficient in the use of land as well.

[jmalter]

i was at Gettysburg for the 1st time 'bout 3 years ago, w/ my aged parents. we took a 1/2-day bus-tour, the docents that lead these tours really know their stuff! the new museum was wonderful, and its shop had at least 100 different books for sale.

visiting the terrain, and walking a bit of it, was v. interesting - one thing i noted, as we were leaving the place. cars in the museum lot had license plates from rather far afield - Florida, N Dakota, Nevada. some of these were Civil War buffs, others were family vacationers.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

i was at Gettysburg for the 1st time 'bout 3 years ago, w/ my aged parents. we took a 1/2-day bus-tour, the docents that lead these tours really know their stuff! the new museum was wonderful, and its shop had at least 100 different books for sale.

visiting the terrain, and walking a bit of it, was v. interesting - one thing i noted, as we were leaving the place. cars in the museum lot had license plates from rather far afield - Florida, N Dakota, Nevada. some of these were Civil War buffs, others were family vacationers.

Where do you go to see what is central to our Republic? Philadelphia for the Liberty Bell? New York City for the French tribute to us the Statue of Liberty? Boston to Bunker and Breed's Hills? Countless other places? Here at Gettysburg is our soul, the place where we would either be destroyed or confirmed.

*******

On a lighter note, to build on what jmalter observed, here in St. Louis we have the Missouri Botanical Garden. This is considered to be on par with Kew Gardens in London. Almost nothing else is. Within the MBG is, for instance, an English Garden. Now to me, this appears simply to be a place where they forgot to rake the leaves, but I am an ignoramous in these matters. However, the MBG has as well as many other things, a Japanese Garden. Go to the MBG any day of any week and you will find Japanese people lined up to see the Japanese Garden. Think of it, they flew thousands of miles from Japan to St. Louis to see the "Japanese Garden" here. I don't think there is anything I could say in the way of hyperbole to embellish on that.

[jmalter]

's true - Gettysburg exerts a pull of its own, memorials to units of both side live adjacent, under the umbrella of Lincoln's immortal address.


btw, thanks for the pics. Gettysburg countryside is PA 'at its best', glad you had good weather & sunlight.