Gettysburg - I Had No Idea

I had no idea that the Battle of Gettysburg only lasted three days.  There were 3,155 union soliders killed and 4,708 soldiers killed and wounded in that battle.  More Americans were killed and wounded in the Civil War than in any other war at 625,000. 

In World War I 416,800 American soldiers were killed.  Did you know that between 60 and 70 million, yes million, people died in World War II. 

Lance with his buddy, Abramham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The battlefield was huge.  I could not find an estimate of the total acreage.  The goverment has purchased 2,772 acres and there is more.

The total number of monuments is debated.  One source says there are 914 separate monuments, markers, or commemorative stones. This figure does not include the 428 flank markers; thus their current total is 1342.  We took the auto tour.  It was 24 miles long.

This is the monuments for the Pennsylvania soliders who were killed and

wounded during the battle.

This is the Virginia monument.

 They start these soldiers young!!!!

There were real confederate and union soldiers here...well, maybe they were not real!!!

This sign reads, "No relic hunting."

Another part of the Gettysburg National Military Park is the National Cemetery. 

 It is here Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address.  It was given at the dedication

 of the Cemetery on November 19, 1863.

This is the Davis Wills House which was the home of a prominent attorney who oversaw the creation of the Soldier's National Cemetery.  This is where Abraham Lincoln finished his address the night before the dedication.