Pennsylvania

We had both really been looking forward to Pennsylvania, particularly to Gettysburg where one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War took place over three days in July 1863. Although the war still raged on for almost two more years, at Gettysburg (only a couple of hours from DC) the Union finally was able to push back the Confederate troops and gradually the war turned in their favour (the fact they had many more men also helped!). We drove a 24 mile route that covered many of the important sites of the battle, and it was amazing to comprehend almost 200,000 men converging on this space in 1860’s warfare. When you consider the fact that the best marksmen could fire off a maximum of three bullets in a minute (!!) the nature of the battle is hard to comprehend. We walked a field that was a mile long and it was where Confederate troops marched, in full sight of their enemy and into firing cannons, to a point where they could start to fire and then run, reload, fire, and so on……like lambs to the slaughter. After the battle, the line of wagons ferrying the wounded home was 17 miles long. The supply line was 60 miles long. Incredible.


Unbelievable numbers…..more men lost in this war than any other wars that the US has been involved in all put together.

We thought this was a particularly amazing story

There are many many monuments and memorials along the way, all of them in really lovely lush, green settings that was once the site of an incredibly bloody battle.

This barn was standing in this spot in 1863 and still bears the scar of a cannon shell up the top.

Battle site of the last day, note all the memorials.

Amish countryside – the buggies were enclosed but we could see inside one and the passengers were dressed in “old fashioned’ clothes, it was very interesting to see the culture still exist strongly today.