Anybody ever been to Civil War battlefields?

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Archaea

To accompany my child who performed with his school group at the Kennedy Center in DC, I traveled with the group to DC.

Observations for those that care, otherwise, snicker or ridicule to your heart's content:

DC is small and very accessible, but finding a gas station there is a nightmare.

The Washington Hilton, where Reagan was shot, is run down and not a very good property.

Gays in DC are very in your face about it; made me want to start a straight sex awareness week, or a Straight Sex with skinny, young and attractive females awareness week. My guess is it wouldn't go over well in DC.

After having visited DC a number of times, I don't care to go back. There is less to do there than New York which can be new every time.

Seeing battlefields with boys is great. We were in Gettysburg on Monday and they did a reenactment of amputations of the wounded. The guides are knowledgeable and friendly.

The battle came as a result of a number of horrific blunders and it is no wonder General Pickett finished last in his class at West Point.

How could one be a general or President knowing you get to pick which young men die?

It was a moving experience having taken the tour of the fields, then to go to the cemetery and read Lincoln's words. One leaves wondering what would have happened had the sides found political solutions. Would we be witnessing apartheid in the South?

Would our economies have not risen to the extent that we would not have defeated Japan and Germany in WWII?

Gettysburgh may have had as many as 51,000 casualties with armies of 75,000 against 93,000. Amazing.

Bull Run was less impressive, and it seems odd given the positioning on the hill that they made so much out of Jackson given his position on the hill, but maybe I didn't get the proper perspective.

Who has seen famous battlefields?

Gettysburg, Antietam Creek (Sharpsburg), Harpers Ferry (site of the US arsenal that John Brown siezed at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah), Bull Run (Manassas), Cedar Creek, Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Brandy Station (largest cavalry engagement of the war), Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg (surfah is right, that one is WELL worth the visit), Petersburg, Appomatox. Fairfax Court house, though not a battlefield strictly speaking, was the site of much of the activity of Mosby's Raiders and is also where George Washington's will was probated. These are all in my back yard.

For a civil war buff, there is no better place to live than Virginia. Gettysburg remains my favorite though. Nothing matches it in either size, scope or importance, from Chamberlain's defense of little round top, to the slaughter at Devils Den, to Pickett's suicidal charge to the Gettysburg address. I always feel a sense of reverence up there that I don't get other places, I think, because of the incomprehensbile sacrifice that occurred there.

I have always been curious as to why we fixate so much on the civil war (rightly) but not the revolution. Maybe there were just bigger characters and more of them.