Walker
Ax-Wielding Nerd
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Gettysburg National Military Park
Yeah, we went up to Gettysburg (American Civil War Battlefield in southern Pennsylvania) for the day a couple days ago. It was pretty cool, but even I was kind of dissapointed-- I spent the whole day looking for some Maryland monuments, and the only one I found was right at the end, near the visitor center. It said most of the Marylanders fought at Culp's Hill, but I didn't see anything when we were there and couldn't go back to look, since we were leaving.
Anyway, it was pretty cool. Rather grim/sobering, but cool. One of the things I really liked were all the monuments to the various units in the middle of the fields or little woods or clearings or whatever where they had actually fought. And, grimly enough, died. The Devil's Den and... ah, I think it was Little, not Big, Round Top was especially cool. There were all the rocks down on the ground like gravestones, and then every so often you'd look at one and you'd go "Hey! That's not a random rock sticking out of the ground, that one's a actual carved monument!"
I can't tell you how many Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachucetts monuments I saw, though-- some to units and some to the soldiers from the states in general. We also saw a Florida one, a Louisiana, and one Alabama one marked "Alabamiansa" (or something like that) for some reason. Can't remember any others. There were lots of them though.
Here's some pictures, though they're a bit crappy since they came from a phone.
Maryland monument. Most of them are of the monument from different angles, but one is of (half) the plate on the back. I should've taken two to get both sides, but my parents were calling and I wanted to get the part saying "Brothers Again. Marylanders All." That also meant that you could only see the list of Rebel Marylander units, not the Union ones, which were on the right side.
Oh, and by the way. You may have noticed that on the one side of the monument there was a cross bottony and on the other the black-and-gold thing from the flag sans the balck-and-gold. Ironically, from what I read, it was the Civil War that brought those two symbols together on our flag. Before the Civil War, the black-and-gold was really the main flag of Maryland. The cross bottony of the Crossland arms was flown sometimes and was used on our seal, but not that often. During the Civil War, Maryland Rebel units fought under the red-and-white cross bottony because the black-and-gold was associated with Maryland. After the war, the two were combined the same way they are on the seal for our present flag.
Oh, and the Delaware monument was right near the Maryland one here, so I took a snapshot of it, too. Apparently they fought on both sides as well (they were a slave Union/Border state, too, even though they didn't border the Rebels anywhere). I suddenly found a desire to learn more about their troops in the war, but for now just here's a shot of the front of their monument.
Oh, and by the way-- the Maryland one here, unlike a lot of the other monuments on the battlefield proper, was built in 1994-- very recent. I think the Delaware one was the same, but I didn't look.
Yeah, we went up to Gettysburg (American Civil War Battlefield in southern Pennsylvania) for the day a couple days ago. It was pretty cool, but even I was kind of dissapointed-- I spent the whole day looking for some Maryland monuments, and the only one I found was right at the end, near the visitor center. It said most of the Marylanders fought at Culp's Hill, but I didn't see anything when we were there and couldn't go back to look, since we were leaving.
Anyway, it was pretty cool. Rather grim/sobering, but cool. One of the things I really liked were all the monuments to the various units in the middle of the fields or little woods or clearings or whatever where they had actually fought. And, grimly enough, died. The Devil's Den and... ah, I think it was Little, not Big, Round Top was especially cool. There were all the rocks down on the ground like gravestones, and then every so often you'd look at one and you'd go "Hey! That's not a random rock sticking out of the ground, that one's a actual carved monument!"
I can't tell you how many Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachucetts monuments I saw, though-- some to units and some to the soldiers from the states in general. We also saw a Florida one, a Louisiana, and one Alabama one marked "Alabamiansa" (or something like that) for some reason. Can't remember any others. There were lots of them though.
Here's some pictures, though they're a bit crappy since they came from a phone.
Maryland monument. Most of them are of the monument from different angles, but one is of (half) the plate on the back. I should've taken two to get both sides, but my parents were calling and I wanted to get the part saying "Brothers Again. Marylanders All." That also meant that you could only see the list of Rebel Marylander units, not the Union ones, which were on the right side.
Oh, and by the way. You may have noticed that on the one side of the monument there was a cross bottony and on the other the black-and-gold thing from the flag sans the balck-and-gold. Ironically, from what I read, it was the Civil War that brought those two symbols together on our flag. Before the Civil War, the black-and-gold was really the main flag of Maryland. The cross bottony of the Crossland arms was flown sometimes and was used on our seal, but not that often. During the Civil War, Maryland Rebel units fought under the red-and-white cross bottony because the black-and-gold was associated with Maryland. After the war, the two were combined the same way they are on the seal for our present flag.
Oh, and the Delaware monument was right near the Maryland one here, so I took a snapshot of it, too. Apparently they fought on both sides as well (they were a slave Union/Border state, too, even though they didn't border the Rebels anywhere). I suddenly found a desire to learn more about their troops in the war, but for now just here's a shot of the front of their monument.
Oh, and by the way-- the Maryland one here, unlike a lot of the other monuments on the battlefield proper, was built in 1994-- very recent. I think the Delaware one was the same, but I didn't look.