Wednesday, August 23 – To continue our tour of the battlefield in Gettysburg, PA, we drove down to an area called the Peach Orchard and the Wheatfield which is an area of the battlefield where over 4,000 lied dead or wounded. It is said that by the end of the battle the attacking troops were running across the area atop the soldiers bodies.
Wheatfield.
Looking up at Little Round Top.
New York Infantry Irish Brigade.
New York Second Fire Zouaves.
We made a stop at the Texas (our legal home state) Memorial near this area to pay our respects to the Confederate Texans that fought and died here. It felt strange to move “behind the lines” over to the Confederate side of the battlefield. We stopped at many more memorials and troop markers before heading to our final stop for the day.
Texas.
Maryland.
We ended our day at the Lincoln Train Museum. We had free tickets from the campground to see the train museum which memorializes the route of the Lincoln Train from Washington to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.
The train travels through the country to show what it may have looked like in Lincoln's time.
Tons of items from Lincoln’s time.
After we looked at the displays, we rode in a full-size Lincoln Funeral Car, The United States. The ride tossed us back and forth as if we were really on a real train track. When we looked out the windows, it looked like we were riding through the country side. It is a simulated journey with the spirit of Abraham Lincoln as he shares his love of America with us.
That is the train in back of the display of train whistles.
Spirit of Lincoln.
Funeral Car with Lincoln’s casket in the corner.
On our way back to the campground, we made on more stop at Cemetery Hill to visit the gate house of the Gettysburg cemetery where Elizabeth Masser Thron single-handedly buried nearly 100 soldiers after the battle. Her husband was away fighting the war. She reluctantly took over the job as the head of the cemetery. It became her job to bury the dead even though she was 7-months pregnant!
Just down the hill from the cemetery is the Lydia Leister Farm which served as a Civil War hospital. Meade’s famous council of war on the evening of July 2nd took place in the house’s tiny main room.
We have one more day here in Gettysburg, so join us for some final visits on these sacred battlefields.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day.
