I've never been there although I have heard it can be quite a moving experience. Do they have an interpretive centre? I'd love to go there (and other historical places out that way one day).
There is an excellent museum and visitor centre on the site just south of Gettysburg on the Baltimore road. Unfortunately I didn't have time to see (participate) in the multi-media show which attempts to recreate the experience of being in one of the regiments making the Charge. I did find the explanatory videos (which were an integral part of the exhibits in the museum) most helpful in understanding the context of the war and the particular circumstances which lead to the confrontation at Gettysburg.
It is much better to visit the museum before touring the battlefield as it makes it easier to relate the events and how they unfolded to the terrain over which they occurred. There are also guided bus tours which are helpful. I was driving a car, but tagged along behind a bus and joined them at each stop.
Overall I found arrangements much better at Gettysburg than I found at Manassas in April, where I was on my own walking around the marked tour route.
I had great-greats in the Civil War who didn't return home. Two Decker brothers married women named Mary, and they both had large families. While they were away at war, one Mary died. After the war, only one brother returned. The other had been a prisoner at Andersonville, and it is assumed he died there. The brother returned to find his wife dead. He ended up marrying his sister-in-law and they blended their families.
This was a tricky genealogical pursuit with two Mary Deckers and two children in the same family named Frank, but it made sense when we discovered each Frank had a different father.
The way your ancestors resolved their respective losses sounds a little like my father's experiences. Over his lifetime he played the father role for three different families. My mother died in 1971. Four years earlier (1967) my uncle (my father's younger brother) was tragically killed in a road accident. My cousins were 3 and 2 years old at the time. My father and my aunt got together (though they never married) and were able to create a stable family environment for my cousins. My aunt died in the '80s while my cousins were at college. My father married a second time, acquiring a stepson in the process. He died in 2003 leaving 5 children who regard him as a father figure, and who all still remain the best of friends.
Your father sounds like a very special man. It's wonderful that all of the families could blend and be best friends. That seems all to rare these days.
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There is an excellent museum and visitor centre on the site just south of Gettysburg on the Baltimore road. Unfortunately I didn't have time to see (participate) in the multi-media show which attempts to recreate the experience of being in one of the regiments making the Charge. I did find the explanatory videos (which were an integral part of the exhibits in the museum) most helpful in understanding the context of the war and the particular circumstances which lead to the confrontation at Gettysburg.
It is much better to visit the museum before touring the battlefield as it makes it easier to relate the events and how they unfolded to the terrain over which they occurred. There are also guided bus tours which are helpful. I was driving a car, but tagged along behind a bus and joined them at each stop.
Overall I found arrangements much better at Gettysburg than I found at Manassas in April, where I was on my own walking around the marked tour route.
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It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace." (John Lennon)
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This was a tricky genealogical pursuit with two Mary Deckers and two children in the same family named Frank, but it made sense when we discovered each Frank had a different father.
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The way your ancestors resolved their respective losses sounds a little like my father's experiences. Over his lifetime he played the father role for three different families. My mother died in 1971. Four years earlier (1967) my uncle (my father's younger brother) was tragically killed in a road accident. My cousins were 3 and 2 years old at the time. My father and my aunt got together (though they never married) and were able to create a stable family environment for my cousins. My aunt died in the '80s while my cousins were at college. My father married a second time, acquiring a stepson in the process. He died in 2003 leaving 5 children who regard him as a father figure, and who all still remain the best of friends.
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