Plan B Forum

Leister Garden Spring Clean Up: Sunday, April 22, MEET AT THE LEISTER HOUSE, GETTYSBURG NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK,
GETTYSBURG, PA @ 10:00 AM

LOCATION: Taneytown Road at the intersection of Hunt Avenue.

Well, fellow historians and gardeners....it is weeding time! Let us toil and sweat once again in the sacred earth at the Leister Garden! With so much accomplished during the past 4 clean-ups, we have reached a point where it should be a little easier from here on. A little weed pulling and herb trimming should be all we need do. Just bring your gloves. Park Service will provide tools. We will also trim bushes tree limbs and maybe a little white washing of the fence. That should do it for this time around. Hoping for a perfect day - we have been very lucky! Of course, we will all join up at Farnsworth for lunch afterwards thanks to the Nourishment and Libations Coordinator, Betty McCormick. Hope to see you all there. Any questions give me a call.

Ginny Benner

(phone number removed to protect the innocent)

Ah Jim, that's just a couple of hundred yards back from the front line.... if you care to do some clean up at Lee's HQ on the other hand, that's about a mile behind the front line ahem

Cheers
Meade

I haven't been to Gettysburg since I was a kid Gen'l, and unfortunately home responsibilities prohibit me from jumping on a plane and heading off to PA this weekend...

But thanks for the heads up....

I'm heading to DC for two weeks in late May/early June, and am contemplating a side road trip to Gettysburg; I've never been and have always wanted to visit.

Been to a great number of minor battlefields.

The only major ones I been to were Vickburg MS and Fort Fisher in Wilmington NC.

I remember hearing from a park ranger at Gettysburg once that the number of people killed at Gettysburg was greater than the combined armies of the British and Colonies during the Revolutionary War.

Takes you back a bit, doesn't it?

No, I haven't ever done the research to confirm this - but I might do it now.

To quote the late Emily Litella, "Never mind." That information about Gettysburg and the Revolutonary War seems to be incorrect in the extreme.

Exact numbers of participants in the RW are difficult to come by, but seem to have been well over 100,000 Germans, at least 150k Brits, and at least a couple hundred thousand colonists. Casualties are also difficult to measure because of the large number who died of disease (mainly smallpox - more than 100k from this alone), starvation, and exposure.

The germ of truth - still quite remarkable - is that many more Americans (combined north and south) died at Gettysburg than DIED IN BATTLE during entire the Revolutionary War.

Sorry.

War of Yankee aggression:
American forces: 8,000 deaths in battle
British forces: 1,200 deaths in battle
German forces: 1,200 deaths in battle. Total plus/minus 10,400

War of Other Yankee aggression:
Union battle deaths Gettysburg: 3,155
Confederate battle deaths Gettysburg: 3,500 Total plus/minus 6,655

BSG: having been to Gettysburg any number of times (well not 1) (or 5) (maybe 6) and going again in mid-July this year (our avoidance of winter in SA while the kids are all gone)...... well, if you have the opportunity I believe it to be well worth the effort. War is not glorified - although I think the regiments who placed monuments there thought in those terms - instead it is as Lincoln said a place to remember those who struggled to determine what kind of country the USA would be. Walk "Pickett's" charge if you can from Seminary Ridge across the road and up the swale to the stone wall and the angle. Imagine what thoughts of those men on both sides must have been.

My friend Brian and i will be walking Pitzer's woods to see if we can understand how an observer standing there might have been able to see Sickle's move down from the ridge line. We will be checking how possible it would be for a disoriented person in the dark to move up from that point to end up asleep between the lines until awakened by the rebel barrage at 1 a.m. on the 3rd and then get swept up in the charge until he ran side by side with Lew Armistead into the Union lines. And you never know - Flashman may tell how it all worked out

Meade