Civil War - Gettysburg and their horses

So much more than a time in history, visiting Gettysburg history comes to life and becomes real. 

Real men fought against each other. Friend against friend, brother against brother, to the death. 

We used the car audio tour that you can purchase in the Gettysburg book shop inside the Visitors Center. It directs you through on a driving tour to see specific sites that were marked in history. Some by bloody battles that made the river run red and others where famous speeches were given. 

The Calvary was a large part of the war and is attested to my the multitude of monuments to the men and their horses all across this country.

What made this more interesting for us, was learning about the details and studying more about the Civil War. Although the war will always be remembered for true freedom for all and the end of slavery as we are all taught in school, there is so much more to the Civil War than slavery though. Did you know slavery still existed in the North after the end of the Civil War and Lincoln himself owned slaves? Not long, but it was still there.

Much of it came to a difference of opinion over the Constitution and whether or not it was an evolving document, land rights, cotton and the desire for the south to succeed from the union. 

Gettysburg will go down for all of history as a battlefield of all battlefields. In 3 days of fighting, the Union lost 27% of their troops and the Confederates lost somewhere between 30-34%. Three days. Almost 50,000 lives gone. In the Visitors Center, they use those numbers and estimate if the war happened today, that 50,000 would be well over 1 million with today's population. 

I am saddened at the losses and the families that never happened or that were destroyed due to the war. I love this country. I hope that if given the chance, you will take time to drive the battlefields and see our countries history. 

the boys and their dog in the middle of a battlefield