August 26th, Sunday – We Finally Have Cable! Gettysburg National Military Park Museum

We awoke this morning to a fog shrouded RV park.  And off in the not too distant field the sound of cows mooing.  A whole new experience to say the least.  Yet, this is what we absolutely love about this lifestyle, around every corner there is always something new waiting to be discovered.

Yesterday I did battle with our cable connection.  For hours I struggled, first to get at least a picture of sorts, and then once I got that to get all the channels.  I was beginning to wonder about my abilities as a full timer.  Such a seemingly simple thing but I just couldn’t get it to work.  By last night still nothing.

Today I went at it with a new resolve.  I checked connections, settings on the distribution box, scanned and rescanned for channels.  The frustrating thing was that all 69 channels were found but we could only view 13. What?  Finally, I started going through all the menus on the TV.  That’s when I found it, the one setting I either had forgotten about or just didn’t think of.  It’s called, ready for this?  Channels!  Change that from air to cable select all channels and there they were.  Barbara now has her HallMark Channel if only for two days.  I now am satisfied that I at least can fix a few things meaning there is still hope for me as we continue to move on down the road.

As the morning progressed one RV after another quickly left until the park was again empty.  But not for long, come afternoon and they began rolling in again.  Why not?  This is a great place, all sites are pull through, and it is easy on and off from Route 81.  I confess though I was beginning to get a bit jealous, seems everyone these days is traveling in 40 to 45 diesel pushers.   But then a 27-foot Winnebago Vista came rolling in.  Ah, there are others like us.  Then again, Graybeard has been fantastic for us and I’ll stick with him as long as we can.  He gets us where we want to go, maybe a bit slower than others but he always gets us there.  I’ll keep giving him the tender loving care he deserves and we’ll just keep rolling along.

Time to share with you a bit of our tour to Gettysburg National Military Park Museum.  Let me begin by saying it is huge, the Museum alone has 12 exhibits.  There is the self guided 24 mile auto tour, as well as other buildings and museums to visit.  As for the Museum, we spent over four hours there and still did not get to see all that was there.  The camera battery also died before we got to the end.  All of this is to say, I’m going to just touch on some of the exhibits, etc. that I found of real interest.  Hope you will enjoy them too.  So let’s get going.

This is the entrance sign as you approach the Museum from the parking lot.

Now before you even get to the Museum off to the left is this fine gentleman by the name of Abraham Lincoln.  And an even finer gentleman sitting with him!

Past the statue of Abe you now come to the Museum itself.  The park’s new Museum and Visitor Center opened in April 2008 with a September 26 unveiling of the Cyclorama painting.  The new, 139,000 square foot facility brings to life the most extensive Civil War collections in the National Park Service through exhibits, interactive, and hands-on experiences that immerse visitors in the story of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War.  It features a new park Visitor Center, the 24,000 square foot Gettysburg Museum of the American Civil War, a new gallery to display the restored Cyclorama Painting, two theaters for a new 22-minute film, “A New Birth of Freedom,” curatorial space, a park library, office space, classrooms, a Refreshment Saloon, and a museum bookstore.

What we learned immediately is that the four years of the Civil War were the bloodiest in the nation’s history.  Some 620,000 soldiers and sailors died in the war – just about 2% of the country’s population at that time.

Americans fought one another over three fundamental issues:

• The fate of slavery and its expansion into the West
• The common rights of an American citizen
• What it means to be an American

During the three days in July, the first, second and third day of July, 1863 roughly 11,000 men died at the Battle of Gettysburg alone, and another 42,000 were wounded, captured or missing.

Once inside the Museum and with tickets in hand, we first sought the film about the New Birth of Freedom narrated by Morgan Freeman.  The film gives you an overview of the Civil war and its after effects.  After the film you went directly into the Cyclorama exhibit.

In the late 1880s, French artist Paul Philippoteaux took brush to canvas and created the Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama painting. He spent months on the battlefield researching the battle with veterans, a battlefield guide and a photographer. It took Philippoteaux and a team of assistants more than a year to complete the painting. The result is a breathtaking canvas that measures 377 feet in circumference and 42 feet high.and along with light and sound effects, immerses visitors in the fury of Pickett’s Charge during the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Today the Gettysburg Cyclorama is displayed the way Paul Philippoteaux originally intended with an overhead canopy and a three-dimensional diorama foreground that realistically features stone walls, broken fences, shattered trees and a cannon.

The following are some pictures from this painting.  What’s missing is the sound that is a part of this exhibit.  To say the least, it is overwhelming and makes one wonder how in the world anyone came out of this one charge alive.  It is said that the artillery bombardment that proceeded Pickett’s Charge left many with shattered ear drums.  The amount of human carnage depicted in this canvas should be enough to convince anyone that war is simply not the answer to a country’s disagreements.  See for yourself.

Leaving the exhibit, we next started to make our way toward the Museum.  But before we got there we came across a number of exhibits outside in the lobby.  The first one that intrigued me was the exhibit of this tree that had been on the battlefield.  Riddled with shell fragments, case shot and canister, this tree fell victim to the tremendous battle fought in the hills and woods around Gettysburg in 1863.  It is estimated that as many as 7,000,000 rounds of iron and lead ammunition were fired by the two armies making one to wonder how anyone could be a part of this battle and still come out either unhurt or alive.

Then there was a case displaying handguns and firearms used in the battle.  While handguns were standard issue to cavalrymen, officers had to purchase their own.  Many soldiers took the handguns they had at home.  Others either purchased their own or picked one up from a fallen soldier on the battlefield.

As for the firearms used during the battle they were more standardized on both sides by the time of Gettysburg than at the beginning of the Civil War.  The types of firearms displayed here represent the types of weapons known to have been used by both armies at Gettysburg.

There was also a display of how a soldier would typically load and fire their firearm.  As I watched it I couldn’t help but think,  you had to do this while the whole world was firing back at you?  It had to be really tough to do while with unceasing fire from the other side.  Take a look and see what you think.

So, we’ll call it for tonight and pick back up tomorrow in our next blog.  Much more to come, we’ll cover some of the reasons for the Civil War, the different types of soldiers that were on the battlefield at Gettysburg, and we’ll touch on some of the aftermath of the battle.

Thanks again for joining us on The Road Of Retirement.  We’re still having a ball, traveling along side by side, singing our song.  We hope that God is smiling upon you as He is upon us.  Somehow, someway, hopefully next year we’re going to be looking for ways to say thanks for our blessings through service to others.  We’ll let you know when and how it comes about.  As for now, have a great evening.  In closing, a thought for each of us to consider:

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries, let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and eventually some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before