Posted on 09/07/2021 8:22:53 AM PDT by MplsSteve
In one week from today, The Wife (aka Mrs. MplsSteve) and I will be in Gettysburg for a few days. Obviously, we're gonna visit the battlefield. We lined up a tour guide thru the Gettysburg Heritage Center and at least for the first night, we'll be staying at the Best Western on Steinwehr Avenue.
I have a few travel brochures and have looked them over but I'm looking for any recommendations or advice on what else to see and do there. That includes places to stay that don't cost an arm and a leg as well as places to eat.
What did you like? What did you not like?
I'd appreciate whatever assistance you can give me.
Go to the Dobbin House, get a kings onion soup, and the rum bellie
Great tip! My father ran out of film in the middle of the re-enactment of Pickett’s Charge in 1963!
Blue and Grey downtown has decent food. Hire a guide from Visitors center for private tour. 1/2 Day is enough to get a start.
Read before going a synopsis of the battle. Bring small pair of binoculars, water bottle.
Grant more for strategic issues and Sherman for tactics.
It was one of the first wars using trench warfare and mining tactics with blasting-although mining wasnt new at all, but the difference was the use of blasting.
Also, the rapid movement of troops via rail and communications via telegraph.
As for Pickets charge? It was one upped by the first days battle of the Somme.
Some 19 thousand Brits died that first day.
Neither are to be proud of.
I often think looking at the cemetery's. Is there an individual in there that could have been the one to discover the cure for cancer?
Absolute waste.
Be warned though that, like everywhere else in the country, most of the restaurants and stores have staffing issues, and service is likely to be slow.
As for sites on the battlefield, your licensed guide will take you on a fairly easy driving tour. I do recommend visiting Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill to the east, since they tend to get ignored, being a bit out of the way from the main drag. And there's also the East Cavalry field out on Hanover Road. The National Cemetery is a must see though.
The best restaurants in town, I suppose, are Garry Owens, The Pub, The Blue & the Grey, the Farnsworth House, and the Dobbin's House, but these tend to be crowded on weekends. So that's about it!
My advice
Don’t tarry taking the high ground
Beware frontal assaults despite the superiority of your corps do fail
See Franklin TN for info
And Gen Longstreet was an early advocate for digging trenches and letting the Union Army bleed itself in the attack. He noted the success of the defense of Maryes’ Heights at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
I also highly endorse Dr. Jay Luvaas’ “U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Gettysburg.” Although I recommended two different volumes in my early reply to you, buy, read, and use Dr. Luvaas’s “Guide” if you think about buying any of the three.
The old CMH Gettysburg Guide’s main use is if you download it to a small computer (kindle size) to carry with you. I knew its two authors and they were very excellent civil war historians.
I stood on the top of a ladder for over an hour dripping sweat, waiting for the baby birds to leave the birdhouse. The first one made it to the roof and I ran out of camera battery. Worst battery experience was when I had a steadicam camera crew following a talent up a staircase. By the time we kept changing everyone’s battery and finished shooting, you could hear the talent panting thru all of her lines.
If I recall correctly, Harper’s Ferry and Antietam are in within driving distance. You can expand the visit.
Actually it was BG John Buford, commander of Meade’s 1st Cavalry Division who chose the ground by establishing his two regiments with 1 facing Cashtown where Heth’s Division’s (A.P. Hill’s Corps) initial attack came from the west and the 2d to the north, where the attack of Ewell’s corps, recalled from Carlisle, made its supporting attack.
Buford’s position facing west is all easily walkable and includes the “Railroad Cut” fight location.
Gettysburg Eddies also
If you are going to be in the area long enough to visit other sites, the Antietam battlefield is well worth visiting—much smaller site.
If you’ve never been there, head west to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and tour the Flight 93 memorial. I’ve been there three times. It is an excellent memorial and very moving, especially when you walk down in the meadow to the fenced-in area where the plane came to ground and was destroyed.
The visitor’s center is excellent—recordings of passengers calling loved-ones, the t.v. news coverage of that day, and much more. It’s a beautiful, serene area. They’ve allowed native plants to grow including wildflowers. I was there on a warm autumn day and the whole place brought tears to my eyes. Folks in the visitor’s center were quiet and reverent.
Be prepared to walk.
Yes indeed, but it was closed for a while earlier this summer because it had no staff. Not sure if it has re-opened or not.
September? Go to Antietam BFP instead.
I should have read through all the replies before posting—had almost added Harper’s Ferry to mine. In the other direction there’s Valley Forge.
Valley Forge in the east. Gettysburg in the middle of the state. Flight 93 memorial in the west. Interesting how those three seminal events in American history that are testaments to the heroism of our people are spread across one state.
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