Gettysburg

Your Center City Correspondent and Mrs. CCC took a quick trip to Gettysburg this week to see the sights and visit the new museum that opened last year. We took our niece’s 12-year old boy, Z, along too. Gettysburg is one of your correspondent’s five favorite places in the world. It is steeped in history, and the dedication, commitment, and sacrifice that the soldiers on both sides displayed just oozes from the rocks and fields and monuments. If you’ve never been there, please take a few days and go – it is educational and humbling all at once.




For those of you who have visited Gettysburg in the past, be ready to be impressed by the new museum. The old museum looked like somebody’s attic, but the new one is state-of-the-art, interactive and very informative. There’s a movie detailing the lead-up to the battle, the 3-day battle and the Gettysburg Address. Then you view the cyclorama, which is a blast from the past. It is a painting of the climactic Pickett’s Charge, and is 42 feet high and 377 long in circumference. Cycloramas used to be a big thing, but this is the last of its kind. It was painted in the 1880’s and is constantly in a state of repair. The current restoration looks spectacular. I’ve been going to Gettysburg for 50 years and this is only the 2nd time I’ve seen it.



Anytime I walk around the battlefield, I get the same feeling as when I walk into a church, like I’m standing on hallowed ground. We cannot imagine what it must have been like for the soldiers, fighting in choking smoke and dust, with your enemy only paces away. But that’s how wars were fought back then.



Gettysburg is only about 2.5 hour ride away from Philadelphia, but it’s more like stepping back 150 years into the past. It’s well worth the trip. If you need any tips on how to visit there, just ask.