(Disclaimer: I write this as I am sick and feeling miserable, forgive me)
Today I returned from a three-day trip to Gettysburg. It was really an amazing place to go too - walking through the fields, you get a real sense of what happened there 142 years ago - like walking the fields of Picket's Charge and imagining 16,000 other Confederate soldiers walking with you, right into solid shot, cannister and musket fire in what looks like a suicidal charge across a mile of open ground.
Or Devil's Den, which is a hill with rocks on it and around it with sort of tunnels and cracks running through the rocks under it which I'm sure some Union soldiers took cover in. Once again, the Confederates were charging across an open field towards a gun emplacement, though they were significantly more successful at Devil's Den.
Some negative aspects, though; the monuments. I didn't want to spend hours walking around looking at monuments about how the 22nd Pennsylvania was here, and the 15th New York Cavalry Divison was here.. The monuments really take away from the feel of the battlefield.
Despite the monuments there are constant reminders of the battle - one farm still has a large hole in its wall where it was struck by a cannon. If you step back far enough you can see the sky on the other side through the exit hole of the cannonball.
Or at Devil's Den, where the famous picture of a Confederate soldier leaning against a rock with his gun against it, behind a wall of stones, was taken - I stood right there, where the Confederate soldier (who was actually dead and moved there for the picture) stood.
So I guess the purpose of this thread is a discussion of Gettysburg - the battle and the battlefield itself.