Harper's Ferry and Gettysburg

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Harper's Ferry is a National Park with the most historical significance of our trip so far...it's not all about the natural rock formations or the wildlife, but about the events that occured there. Harper's Ferry saw the beginning of great industry in the US, it was the home of the first successful railway, it was where John Brown made his famous attack on slavery, where the largest surrender off Federal troops in the Civial War took place, andwas the home of one of the earliest integrated formal schools for former slaves. All this, and it's a stop along the Appalachian Trail. Whoah! Now it's simply a couple of streets consisting of quite a few one-room museums devoted to all of these different events, as well as food shops, art galleries, and souvineer shops. The armory that John Brown broke into to stage his revolt is still there, as well as the railroad tracks and signs of its history. It was an educational stop, full of history and things we'd only read about in elementary history books.

Next stop, Gettysburg. This national historical park was organized so that we were handed a parks brochure with a driving route outlined that would take us to all of the important sites of the 3-day long civil war battlegrounds. Along the drive are various monuments and lookout towers, but mostly it's a bunch of fields, forests, and rocky terrain that you simply stare and wonder aloud at, while your imagination runs rampant. The battlegrounds have an eerie quality to them, and you could spend hours stopping to read all of the monuments along the roadside. Our favorite was the peace memorial, which was dedicated 75 years after the wars end, and actually saw about 1200 surviving veterans at the dedication. Imagine how young they must have been during the war! In the cemetery we saw the place where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address and hear that when he gave the address, a couple of months after the battle, only about 1/3 of the fallen soldiers had even been buried in the national cemetery due to their volume. The whole stop was amazing...even the giant beer outlet store with the biggest walk-in fridge Paul had even seen...that discovery had a different kind of "awe" effect, though. haha!

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Comments

[Ellen]

We've never been here before, but, as a lover of all things historic, I really enjoyed the information. Sounds like a must see. Love you!