GETTYSBURG - ANTIETAM

Burnside Bridge - Antietam Battlefield

Day 4 of the Civil War Tour. Another early morning for us. Leaving the hotel at 8am, we were off to the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Also known as the Soldiers National Cemetery, this was the place of the famous Gettysburg Address that President Abraham Lincoln gave. It was a cold and rainy morning, nothing like the 80 degrees that was supposedly being promised later on in the day my iPhone weather app. On the way to the cemetery, everyone on the van was knocked out cold. You could tell all this traveling was starting to catch up with us. Half an hour of napping on the van would help more than you could imagine. Once we arrived at the cemetery, the rain had actually let up, and the sky was starting to clear a bit. Still chill outside though, to say the least. At the Cemetery, there are hundreds of tombstones that spread across the field. Almost all of them had no names, just numbers that represented the soldiers. It was a nice Cemetery, but also, not really as big as you would think it would be. Most soldiers who could, would have their bodies sent back home to be buried where they lived. We spent some time here, honoring the fallen, and then we were off to our next spot. The Gettysburg Visitors Center and Museum.

Soldier's National Monument - Location of Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Visitors Center and Museum is just absolutely massive. They have a movie theatre to watch the film they offer and they have a cyclorama of an original painting from just after the Civil War which was a 360 degree painting that surrounded everyone in the room. It was a beautiful painting with a lot of detail that covered the entire Battle of Gettysburg in a story format of the 3 days of fighting that occurred. The film was a short film that was made by National Geographic on the Battle of Gettysburg with Morgan Freeman narrating. Just the fact that he was the narrator made the short film, which was really well done, even better.

After both of these, we then made our way to the museum portion of the visitors center. They had quite a bit of cool interactive exhibits that would show you anything and everything you wanted to know on the Battle of Gettysburg. Some of the items that I found most interesting through the different exhibits were the flags from the Civil War. There were a couple of original flags that were on display in the museum, one of them being a Union flag from 1861. You could just imagine that flag being carried into battle by the soldiers. It was a very neat thing to be able to see. After we left the museum, of course, everyone had to have their time to look in the gift shop. Once we were finally able to get out of the shop, after having hundreds of middle schoolers waiting in line before us, we were on our way to Maryland. Our next stop would be Sharpsburg, MD. The Battle of Antietam.

Gettysburg National Cemetery

After stopping for Arby's, which was most certainly not our lunch of choice, (Chipotle and Buffalo Wild Wings were down the street), we had made it to the Antietam Battlefield, which was located in Sharpsburg, Maryland. We first stopped in the visitors center where there was a room overlooking the cornfields of the Battle of Antietam. This was our next lecture. I knew everyone in that room were struggling to stay awake. It was cold, the seats were nice, and we were all exhausted. Once the lecture finished up, we walked the trails that the visitors center had which marked the routes that the soldiers traveled on throughout the battle. We would stop at certain points along the road for our professor to tell us about what happened during the battle at this point on the field. We would eventually make our way to a very tall observation tower, one like we had at Gettysburg, to hear the second portion of the lecture, with a high vantage point of all the field. This was the bloodiest day in American History, over 23,000 soldiers had either died or been wounded on that day of battle. It was nice to be able to see all the areas on the battlefield at once. I can understand and learn things much easier when I have tangible objects to help me along the way.

Gettysburg Cyclorama Painting

After leaving the tower, we walked to what would be our last stop at Antietam for the day. The Burnside Bridge. Here we had our last lecture of the day. Many of the students were searching for four leaf clovers or playing with rocks. You could tell where our minds were. I was definitely out in left field for some of it as well. It's just hard to keep focus after being on a long tour with 12 hour learning days. However, still trying to enjoy the visit the best I could, I was in search of the best place to capture a picture of the bridge. It seemed like
an iconic photo at the Antietam Battlefield. At least from the postcards and pictures I had seen in the gift shop just earlier that day. When we were let loose after the lecture, we walked all around the bridge trying to take cool pictures that will most likely end up on Facebook or Instagram. Then we were called back to the van to set off to our hotel for the evening. Apparently we were going to the best buffet in Hagerstown for dinner. I was down, I felt like my spine was being digested. So here's to the end of the day. One stop left tomorrow, and that would be Harper's Ferry. The week was almost done.