Gettysburg on Memorial Day, the 150th anniversary.

Monday, May 27, Day 35

It's Memorial Day and John and I decided to drive down to Gettysburg.  We had been wanting to see it, and today is the perfect day.  There will be a parade and a celebration in this, the 150th year since the Battle of Gettysburg.  However, the really big celebration will take place this year around the 4th of July, which will be the actual dates of the battle.

It is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Uncle Bill's to the battlefield, and we pass a lot of rural area, large farms and beautiful rolling hills.  

When we arrived at the battlefield, my primary objective was to see where John's great great grandfather was memorialized.  He was with the 121st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.  His unit mustered in at the beginning of the war in 1961 and mustered out on the last day in 1965.

There are three memorials to this unit on the battlefield;  One erected by survivors of the unit, one erected by the  State of Pennsylvania, and a large Pennsylvania monument dedicated to all of the  Union Soldiers.

This great great grandfather, William C. Cocker, was wounded on the first day of battle at Gettysburg, July 1st.  He  got hit in the arm, around the elbow.  Fortunately, he survived the wound without having his arm amputated, although it affected his ability to pursue his livelihood, that of an upholsterer, after the war.  

He was sent to a field hospital where he recovered, then was sent back to his unit and continued through another two years of war until the surrender at Appomattox.

The battlefield is beautifully laid out and easily understandable.  John asked at the gift shop and was told of the most popular audio tour, which we bought, and we were really engaged in stopping at the designated places and seeing how the battle unfolded.

They have tried to faithfully construct the battlefield like it was during those three days.   It is quite an experience to listen to the battlefield strategies of the commanding officers, many of whom went to West Point together and now fought against each other.   The type of ammunition, cannons and guns they were using were really deadly and it is hard to imagine so many young men marching into the line of fire, their comrades falling all around them, and expecting death at any minute themselves.

We took a break from our tour after about 2 hours and headed downtown to see the parade.  This group of spectators was quite interesting to me ---- Amish women, and reenactors, veterans and spectators all together.

There were, of course, numerous units of soldiers depicting those who fought at Gettysburg.

The grand marshall was the Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Corbett, who also gave an address at the Soldier's cemetery at the end of the parade.

This young African American woman was the only person of color I saw in the parade.  Since she is marching with the Confederate soldiers, I would love to know her story.   There were only a few African American spectators in the crowd --

This group was designed to depict soldiers of all eras, from the Revolutionary War to the present.

There were several units of Masons  and Shriners, in this parade, also Eastern Star and DeMolay, all part of the Masonic family.   I thought they were a dying breed, but it seems like these fraternal organizations like the Masons, the American Legion, the VFW are very active in the East.

The crowds were pretty good size, and since it was an overcast day, slightly on the cool side, it was good weather for parade watching.

After the parade, we went back to the battlefield to continue our tour.

Below is the view from Little Round top.  The Union Army had taken of a lot of the high ground early on, with a clear view of most of the battlefield, so the commanding generals could send out information to their  various leaders on strategies. From here you can see where most of the battles took place. 

Gettysburg was the one big battle fought in Union Territory, and in the end, Lee decided to retreat rather than lose more soldiers.  The rest of the next two years of the war were virtually spent in retreat  for the Confederate Army. The rest of the war was fought in the South.

Gettysburg's cemetery is dedicated to the Union soldiers.  Remember an earlier posting talking about the Confederate Memorial Day?  Those same women spent a lot of time trying to retrieve the bodies of their fallen sons and husbands.  Eventually, many of the bodies were sent back to the south to be buried in cemeteries there. There are occasionally bodies still uncovered by farmers ploughing their fields.

There is  book I would recommend, written by Drew Faust, the first woman President of Harvard.  It is called, " This Republic of Suffering:  Death and  the American Civil War."

The State of Pennsylvania erected this huge monument to their fallen.  Since the battle was fought in Pennsylvania, they lost the most soldiers.  I looked for the 121st infantry and found the listing of all the soldiers who had fought in the Battle of Gettysburg.  WC Cocker, John's ancestor was listed.

There are over 400 monuments on the battlefield.  The Union erected them for all units that fought here.  The Confederacy erected only State monuments.  At the 50th anniversary of the battle, there were still living soldiers on both sides who came back to shake hands, and relive the horror of those three days.

The final monument I was looking for was near the huge Pennsylvania Memorial.  It was the one put there by the survivors of the Pennsylvania 121st.   John's ancestor didn't witness any of this.  After surviving the war from 1861 to 65, he, like so many others, marched home after the Grand Review of the Armies before the new President, Andrew Johnson. William C. Cocker died in 1872, at age 30, of typhoid, leaving two children, one of whom was Uncle Bill's great grandmother, Veronica Cocker Humphreys.   Imagine surviving all that war and then dying at an early age anyway.

Toward the end of our tour, we were at an area called the High Water Mark.  This is where Pickett's Charge took place, throwing one last massive offensive on the part of the Confederates at the Union Army.   They were literally charging uphill, becoming targets of the Union Soldiers who could pick them off at will.

This is the monument to this battle, called the Copse of Trees, as some 7,000 Union soldiers repulsed 13,000 Confederate soldiers, killing many of them.  The next day,  July 4, General Lee began his retreat.

And one last lasting impression.  These were the barriers erected by the soldiers to try to protect themselves from the many guns being fired.  It may have helped against some bullets, but the big guns were raining shrapnel down on them, causing even greater harm.  And this little one foot high wall was their only protection.   My fervent wish is that we have  many National holidays and celebrations in the future that are not related to some war we have fought.