GETTYSBURG

I have a feeling that no matter your familiarity with the Civil War, you have heard of Gettysburg. Given that it was probably the largest battle in the Eastern Theater and probably has the most monuments of any of the battlefields, then it is pretty well known.



AJT04 enjoyed the Visitor's Center, as did Mommy, and she tried to complete the worksheets that I found online. (The work sheets were actually for school groups, but that did not stop her from trying to complete them.) Since AJT04 also said that President Lincoln is her favorite president, then she was very interested in the sections about the Gettysburg Address. The Visitor's Center has done a good job of presenting what the battle meant to the civilians in the area and I think that AJT04 discovered that she would not have wanted to be living in Gettysburg at the time.









Both girls enjoyed looking at the monuments, particularly for ones with animals or ones that were to Ohio or Indiana units. There were two monuments that they could climb -- the Pennsylvania monument and the 44th and 112the New York Monument. They climbed the monuments with Daddy and enjoyed it so much that they wanted to do it again, particularly AJT07. The monuments also presented AJT07 with another chance to read letters and numbers and a chance for AJT04 to read more about the units or about the Gettysburg Address and the National Cemetery. We also stopped by the historic downtown portion of Gettysburg and AJT04 stood by the statue of Abraham Lincoln that stands outside the Wills House where he spent the night before delivering the Gettysburg Address. Since it had been several years since my last trip to Gettysburg, I enjoyed seeing the updates to the town and the new Visitors Center as well.

We also visited the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, where the girls wanted their pictures to be taken by the mannequins dressed as soldiers and sailors. Unfortunately, the light was dim (probably to help preserve the artifacts) and the pictures did not turn out too well. The girls did find the soldiers interesting but were somewhat frightened by the recreated cannon fire. (AJT07 disliked the cannon fire so much that anytime we were near a cannon she would ask whether it would go off and even if we said no would still cover her ears.)




Prior to the trip to Harrisburg, we did stop at Boyds Bear Country in Gettysburg where both girls were able to have eyefuls of bears of every kind and sort. We allowed each girl to make one animal and AJT04 chose to make a pink bear while AJT07 made a frog -- they have loved their animals and sleep with their animals every night. I particularly liked the bears known as Mason (Union) and Dixon (Confederate), Daddy was not surprised in the least that those were the ones I would pick.

We had a very memorable time in Gettysburg and the surrounding areas and I know that I am looking forward to returning there someday (who knows maybe I can convince Daddy and the girls to return about July 1-3 of 2013).