Memory and acting on memory can lead to unexpected and surprising discoveries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My previous visit to the battlefield, close to forty years ago, was purely functional. It was a stop on the way to Pittsburgh, a ride we found too far to manage in a single bite from Rhode Island. I had no particular interest in the Civil War. I had a vague sense of Lincoln\u2019s address but it stood apart from the battle, more a geographic location. I had some sense of the battle because when I arrived in America my family became obsessed with yard sales. We would get the early edition of the Sunday paper on Saturday evening to scour the advertisements. (The tradition of getting the early edition continued even after we became more settled and interest moved from yard sales to real estate). Following one Sunday scavenge, my parents returned with a copy of Avalon Hill\u2019s Gettysburg<\/em> war game. I liked the map but found the gameplay too complicated and I could never induce a brother or friend to join me in playing so intricate a game. Somehow, The game and its recreation of history came together only after touring the battlefield and discovering the Emmitsburg Road, Chambersburg Pike, and Hanover Road were all real roads, existing then and carrying traffic to this day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We stayed in likely the cheapest motel on the edge of the battlefield, possibly the Colton Motel before its addition of a pool. It was summer, warm June, but before school got out and in advance of the crush of end-of-term class visits. It was an era of maps and guidebooks \u2014 no audio tours, no clamoring private tour companies, no self-guided tours in three wheeled motor-scooter buggies. If you met at the right spot at the right time, you might catch a ranger led tour but those were largely site specific, like at the Pennsylvania Monument. The visitor center was a shabby, low building, not out of place with the farm buildings and barns on the battlefield itself. Apparently designed some thirty years or more before, its central display was a large relief diorama of the battlefield clearly showing Seminary Ridge facing Cemetery Ridge, with the peach orchard between them. Flags and markers in blue and grey laid out the positions of the troops for the battle on July 3rd \u2014 Avalon Hill maximized and in 3-D, here making sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On that visit, in chatting with rangers, who were eager for a new and modern visitor center that was already in the planning phase, and the locals at the motel desk or those who worked at the restaurants, development around the battlefield, and the pressure to accommodate and manage increased tourism were major concerns. Would the battlefield be despoiled with views of Golden Arches or Colonel Sanders winkish grin from the heights of the ridges? From the restaurant through a large window, our waiter pointed out a field across the road and motioned to the Confederate lines. He claimed there was nothing much to see there. Some people were maybe trying to make it more important. The real part of the battlefield lay with the Union lines and its monuments close by the visitor center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following morning, we woke really early, unusually bright and ready to leave. The sun was barely rising. We grabbed instant coffee in the room, packed, and headed to the Hummelbaugh House, a hospital during the battle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mist covered the fields. It was quiet. Without breeze. Even the birds were silent. It was too early for traffic. We were alone. The grey stone monuments revealed themselves only when we were close upon them, the lighter smoother stone parts seen first. We had travelled this road hastily the afternoon before. Now we crept along as the mist slowly burned off. The experience was haunting. A clank or sharp sound brought to mind the hundreds who has been camped there years earlier. Anxious and likely afraid of the coming day\u2019s battle. I knew then that it was a place to revisit. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Memory and acting on memory can lead to unexpected and surprising discoveries. My previous visit to the battlefield, close to forty years ago, was purely functional. It was a stop on the way to Pittsburgh, a ride we found too far to manage in a single bite from Rhode Island. I had no particular interest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ww-on-the-wroad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}