Today we drove the opposite direction to Gettysburg, PA. The Visitor’s Center is amazing. Honestly, there’s no need to leave the Visitor’s Center to get all of the information you could ever want about the Civil War. There are videos, interactive displays, artifacts and written information about every aspect. One highlight was a 360 degree painting that they used lighting and narration to help give perspective on how the battle took place.

We then took an audio tour in our car and drove through the sites where the fighting occurred. Somehow, I thought the space they fought in was quite small. That’s not the case. It’s fairly large, with lots of varied terrain. That make sense. I just hadn’t envisioned it that way.

It’s amazing to think about how the armies stayed organized - how the soldiers got to where they were supposed to go and did what they were supposed to do. And both sides fought with such passion - each thinking this particular battle was key to winning the war. As it turns out, they were right. The North was outnumbered, especially in the beginning. But, they held the high ground in a defensive position and it worked in their favor.

Nearly 30,000 people were killed or mortally wounded in that battle - ten times the population of the city of Gettysburg at that time. Can you imagine coming home from hiding and finding bodies everywhere? This was the only Northern city that was effected much in the Civil War. Many Southern cities were demolished, as most of the fighting happened there.

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