Gettysburg 150th kickoff

Activities on April 30 2011: morning muster and skirmish at the
Lutheran Seminary, Union troops marching and skirmish on Baltimore
Street, and part of closing cannonade

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Premiere_Elements_9
• War
• Gettysburg
• Civil

[rickcee]

I'm a Civil War nut. I 'bleed' for the history of it, but re-enactment simply escapes me. I find it so dopey. I visit many of the battlefields, and hope to have visited them all as an item on my bucket list, but I specifically go to these sites when the re-enactors aren't doing their thing. I wouldn't want to embarrass either of us by laughing.

[rob9641]

@rickcee Too bad. It can be very educational. Watch the History Channel and you think the battle thru Gettysburg town was like Bagdad. Watch this, and you see the different tactics they used in 1863.

[Ropjet]

I thought they didn't allow guns on the battlefield?

[rob9641]

@Ropjet - The only part of this on Park Service property were the cannons at the end, and they were monitored by rangers. The rest was on Seminary property and on the street in town.

[rob9641]

My vantage point wasn't great because I was working crowd control, but I wanted to give a bit of an idea of how this all looked. The first skirmish was on the land between the Seminary and McPherson Ridge; the second down the middle of Baltimore Street - both places right where the real action took place on July 1, 1863. Seldom if ever done before this.

[rickcee]

@rob9641 Well, I didn't learn much, but maybe that's because I'm a Civil War Nut. The Napoleonic tactics, as we view them today, seem so totally inane. They'd improved their weapons far beyond the levels they were at even as little as 2 years prior, yet they didn't develop too many tactics that resembled guerilla fighting to any extent other than what some picket lines might have done. Amazing to look back on it and wonder why they didn't adapt more quickly to a more "run and gun offense."

[LoyaltyOfDogsDotCom]

Remember the soldiers, and remember their loyal dogs, too:

[NurfHurdur]

I had so much fun, this was a once in a life time thing and I am so proud to have been part of it.

[Pamela2017]

It was an awesome event, I'm really glad I was there.