Wednesday, May 10
The only breakfast option in the hotel was a Starbucks, but we looked on the map and I realized the Lincoln Diner was just a block out the back door and had great reviews. It was a crowded, real diner with full booths, and had a dining room in the back where we were able to get seats. It was exactly what you’d expect from a diner serving breakfast: quick and good coffee and unpretentious and inexpensive eggs, omelets, and toast. We were surrounded by tables full of groups of guys, some with military insignia and tattoos. They looked happy to be at Gettysburg but a little nervous about what memories and feelings would come up during the day.
We packed up pretty quickly on a beautiful, warm and breezy morning, and drove the few miles down to the Visitor Center (we actually had to follow a detour almost all around it) at the Gettysburg National Military Park. The VC was obviously geared up for hordes of people and luckily it was not at full capacity, though it was already getting crowded with swarms of schoolchildren on field trips and the groups of grim men. We had to pay @$17.75 for the “Film, Cyclorama, and Museum” experience and wondered if it would be worth it. It sure was.
Let me digress a bit and talk about our feelings coming into the experience and afterwards. Neither I nor Sarah glorify militarism, and we feel that the American Civil War and its bloody battles were tragic wastes of the lives of working people, as puppets of the rich merchants and politicians who were calling the shots. We realize there was a moral aspect too, to say the least, and are heartened by the story of the nation turning away from slavery, and realize what a wrenching change it must have been. But as opposed to many people, we generally don’t want to hear the details! We know that over half a million soldiers died in it, but have little interest in learning about where and when and how.
But here we were traveling near Gettysburg on our quest to see National Parks, I’d been told by several people of different backgrounds that I had to see Gettysburg sometime, I work at a National Historical Park, and we realized we needed to stop there. We figured at the least it would be a lovely place on a Spring day. So we went and we’re glad we did, though it was a lot more than we expected.
As an example of my naivete as to military things, I realized only while watching their film about the details of the Battle of Gettysburg, that if the battle site was in Pennsylvania that means Confederate General Lee invaded Pennsylvania … which is the North! As far as the South fighting against “Northern aggression,” what the fuck was Lee doing in Pennsylvania? The answer is well documented: he was trying to intimidate the North, and he was there to capture free black people and make them slaves. This seems pretty aggressive to me, and incredibly immoral. I can’t believe that upper-level officers who fought for “the South” are still admired. In Winchester VA we drove on Jubal Early Drive and I wanted to open my door and spit on the street.
I believe in freedom and I’m disgusted by people who misinterpret what that concept is. “Freedom” has to be qualified and federated or else you’re stuck in logical conundrums like, “freedom to enslave other people,” and “freedom to plow up another man’s field,” and “freedom to kill” or “freedom to deny other’s rights.” If you’re going to have a country, it needs to have a federal government. An association of states can be beneficial, but does not lend itself to the universal application of morality, as we’re seeing in the EU.
But to be fair, the U.S. Civil War can be seen from many sides. Another naïve question I’d always had in the back of my mind was why didn’t the North just let the South secede? Why was it such a big deal to keep the Union together? There’s a cynical answer to this too, that was touched on in the film. The big thing is that the North needed the South. It was the product produced by the Southern slave farms, cotton, that fueled our economy. The North had the commercial abilities and the mills, but it was nothing without the export-worthy product of the South and so the businessmen in the North could not let the South go.
A break from my polemic back to the narrative. As implied, our minds were captured by the film describing the events of July 1-3, 1863. Two massively powerful armies fought on the site of the town and the surrounding fields, creating destruction that saddened us. After the battle, in which a number of farms were destroyed, many never to recover, the people of that small town were left with the task of nursing thousands of wounded men from both sides (who continued to try to kill each other) and of burying the tens of thousands of corpses from both sides that were littering their streets and fields. The armies marched on.
The film was very good, and then we went upstairs to the “cyclorama.” After the battle, Paul Philippoteaux was commissioned with re-creating the scene in a painting. Narrative paintings were the most realistic media of the latter 19th century, and Philippoteaux and team documented the battle in detail. The huge painting has been restored after a long fight with time and neglect, is displayed in the cyclorama exhibit at Gettysburg NMP, and is well worth seeing. They ushered us upstairs to see the painting in the round and we were kind of impressed but not really. Then the lights went down.
We’d just heard about what happened on July 2 and 3 in the film, and the room flashed and echoed with the sights and sounds from those sub-battles while we whirled around to follow it all. The simulation had us standing on Cemetery Ridge, which the North defended on the 3rd while the Confederates attacked it in waves from their positions on Seminary Ridge. Different parts of the painting lit up and we realized how realistic it was. There was the artillery being used, the men dying and the medics trying to pull them away, and the armies rushing this way and that, spearing with bayonets. The squads and their leaders were rendered in amazing detail: what General stood where, how far each squad was able to advance, where the wells and field hospitals were, what kinds of artillery were placed where, etc.
It was frightening to me, and I’m sure to the people in the audience who had been in combat it must have been intense. What an incredible effect from a 19th century artifact (enhanced by 21st century technology). I hate to say it, but the production was worthy of the money they demanded for it. Sarah and I breathed a bit when it was over and were some of the last to leave the theater, the exit being surrounded by some more very good interpretive displays, including further interpretation of the massive painting. We hadn’t gone in there with the goal of learning all about the Battle of Gettysburg, but they sure educated us.
The Museum (and massive book/gift shop) was next, and again, they had some excellent exhibits. I always wondered about why artillery was so pivotal in 19th century warfare (let alone earlier times), and they had exhibits that explained that, as well as one we loved, about musical instruments armies used.
But the swarms of schoolchildren and the crowds of enthusiasts made us realize we needed to get out of there. We talked with a kind Ranger and were directed to the Cemetery Ridge Trail, out the back door of the monumental VC. Phew, back out in the sun and the fresh air and we had another nice talk with a Ranger out there, who steered us in the right direction for an excellent walk through the woods, over to a restored farmhouse that served as General Mead’s headquarters. What? We had thought we’d exited from the Civil War but as we passed the Federal’s HQ we were now back in the conflict, hiking past where the artillery had lined up on Cemetery Ridge.
As mentioned, it was a lovely Spring day with colors in the sky and birds chirping all over. But we were now in the middle of the painting we had just seen, without the soldiers, noise, and danger luckily, looking West down the long slope the Confederates had charged up. Down in the valley below the Ridge we were standing on were a few farmhouses, just like in the painting, and on the Ridge itself were an incredible array of stone monuments and sculptures in place of the soldiers and artillery. We went for a nice walk down a mown path in the fields, inspecting monuments as we passed. At that moment, it didn’t seem like the battle had happened in the distant past, it seemed like it had just occurred and we were still living with the aftermath. Everyone there we observed was as awed as we were. What does freedom mean and war cost? I think most of the people there were asking these questions of themselves.
Anyway, we were done. We had our fill of reading inscriptions on monuments and headed back to the VC, past Mead’s Headquarters and into the blessed woods. Took the long way around the VC (we didn’t want to go back in) and got to the car. It was just after noon, we were just a few miles out of town, and our parking validation was still good! So we headed back up into the city, parked the car, and had a great lunch back at Ploughman’s in Lincoln Square.
One thing about Lincoln Square in the middle of Gettysburg was that the parade of trucks was never-ending, just as it had been on the Pennsylvania highways the day before. We sat there with our beer/cider (Sarah got a flight of ciders and a bunch to go, I got a Gut Czech Pilsner from the same brewery as produced the excellent Yellow Birch, Michaux Brewery), our cheese, and our pickle (actually apple chutney), and watched giant truck after giant truck roll through town. After lunch we wanted to visit the David Wills House, where Abraham Lincoln had spent the night before the Gettysburg Address, but it wasn’t open on Wednesdays. Contrary to urban myth, Lincoln did not scribble the text of the speech on a napkin in the train ride up from Washington. He composed it carefully in the White House and then worked on a final draft in the Wills House the night before the dedication of the National Cemetery. And the house still exists in the middle of Gettysburg, as I say, a charming town.
We stuffed ourselves back into the car in the parking garage and said, ok we’re leaving Gettysburg and those “war” feelings for good! But on the way South out of town we had to make one more stop and it was a good one. Just before you get out of there is the Longstreet Observation Tower, on the ridge General Longstreet’s men departed for their deaths. As I say, it was a beautiful day with great visibility and we could see the whole battlefield/town/farming area stretched out below us and we got the chance to shudder again at the brutality. There was an old metal placard with topographic indentations up there to help you site various features.
Then we were definitely out of there, driving on farm roads and eventually larger roads down into Maryland. We realized that, even though Gettysburg had soaked up a lot of time, we were still ahead of schedule. We wanted to get to Winchester VA that night but had plenty of time to get there, and then suddenly a sign for Catoctin Aqueduct appeared, and we zoomed South, with the Google directions lady trying to catch up.
She had us go this way and then that way, and then down there, and then over those dusty railroad tracks, and then there we were, at Lock 29 in the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. We read a few signs and then went for a hike up the towpath towards the aqueduct itself, which is a mile and a half one-way. Lovely walk along the towpath, remembering Mom being so excited about the history of it and marveling at huge beech trees.
We got to the aqueduct, which carried the canal (and boats in it of course) over Catoctin Creek. This was a magical place, being deep in the woods, near a huge river, and full of history. A bicyclist from Austria happened along and we had a nice conversation, admiring the reconstructed engineering feat, the wrought-iron railings, and the nesting cliff swallows. Paralleling the towpath was the railroad that replaced it, and we heard and then saw a couple of trains swoop by as we hung out there and then made our way back down the towpath, one train a quick burst of engines and one a loonnngg freight train.
Back at the lock we detoured down to the Lander boat ramp on the Potomac River. Now more sedate but still flowing strongly enough to not be navigable upstream without a good engine, a few dozen miles downstream from Harper’s Ferry.
And speaking of Harper’s Ferry, that was our next destination, after the Google lady got us back on the right track. We dipped into Virginia and then back up North to West Virginia, and then followed the road down into the small town of Harper’s Ferry. Signs commanded us to park at the VC but we wanted a quick peak downtown and that’s what we got, past the Post Office we’d been to with Sally and Jim back in 2019. We didn’t stop though, and drove back up the bluffs to the Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park VC, where we got a map and refilled our water bottles.
OK, the day was getting on. It wasn’t that long a drive from there over to Winchester VA, where we’d booked a room in the George Washington Grand Hotel. We’d stayed there with S&J on the previous trip and were eager to return. Winchester is perhaps not as charming as Gettysburg, but is still a wonderful small city and features a classic old hotel in the middle of town. Parked at the municipal garage again, which cost was discounted from our hotel rate. They gave us a great third floor room overlooking Picadilly Street, and I had perhaps my best sleep of the trip there.
The pool in the GW Hotel wasn’t open when we were there before, but I was determined to try it, and it was open! It features “Greek” columns and sculpture and proved to be a lot of fun. I was floating through the statuary when a family group showed up and the kids were suddenly quieted by the sight of an elderly man enjoying the pool. I was done and exited quickly so they could enjoy it as much as I had. Squeals of delight followed me to the elevator.
Made a bad decision about dinner that night, going to the only place that had been open on our 2019 trip (Picadilly Public House) and expecting at least as good a meal. It was much worse however, and the beer selection was pretty bad (Vienna Lager from Devil’s Backbone was the best), though we just wanted to eat and get back to our room and then bed, which soon was the story.
104.9 miles that day, not that much distance but a lot of things to see and think about!
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