Walking the walk and hearing the talk

                The Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College offers an opportunity to immerse yourself into the Civil War for five days, a chance to really commit to the study of the era. If you enjoy history, particularly the history of the Civil War, this is a grand chance to learn.

          One of the events on Saturday was a walk of the distance between the

A monument along Cemetery Ridge.

Confederate positions on Seminary Ridge toward the Union positions on Cemetery Ridge along the path of a unit involved in Pickett’s Charge. We walked with experts in the field (sorry for the pun) who stopped us at various locations along the way to explain what was happening at each point in the Charge.

          This was an extraordinary event for your loyal blogger. The walk along the path was not a new experience and the story is a familiar one, but the addition of the mini lectures made the evening walk unique.

          We walked from the Virginia Memorial statue to the Bloody Angle and the Copse of Trees. It’s about a mile from Ridge to Ridge and the undulating terrain was a little bit of a test for irregular walkers.

          When you turn to your right, see Little Round Top in the distance and understand that the Union artillery troops up there fired at the Confederates with terrific effect during the Charge, you suddenly get a new feel for the difficulty the Confederate infantry faced that day.

          If you go to Little Round Top and look in the distance, you can see the same area where we walked last night. But without a large group of people walking toward the Union position, there is a disconnect from what the Union artillerymen saw and felt. Walking across the fields and looking at Little Round Top, where those Union men had their artillery pieces working well on July 3, 1863, you get a very different feeling. You understand the feeling of being a target.

          Five years ago, when this writer visited Gettysburg for the first time, I walked the same approximate pathway twice (once in the wrong direction in order to get to the starting point and then back with the correct bearing). When I returned to the Visitors Center, where my wife and daughter were soaking up the air conditioning, I told them, “I know what they did. I don’t know how or why they did it.”

          Since then, this blogger has read several books on the subject. I have attended lectures and talked to experts.

          And I still don’t know how those Confederate soldiers got as far as they did before the Charge failed in the face of a determined Union defense.

          Why do we study history? To answer that question.

          Thanks for reading.