This picture was taken from the Union lines at Pickett's Charge, the last battle at Gettysburg. The Union and Confederates waged an Artillery battle for about 2 hours. It was reported that the smoke was so thick they couldn't see what they were shooting at. The Confederate artillery was pretty much ineffective. The Union stopped firing to conserve ammo. The Confederates assumed they had destroyed the Union cannon. They sent 12,000 - 15,000 men in a line a mile wide. From the treeline you see in the distance. All the Union soldiers could hear were the drummers. They were a mile away. At the half way point the Union cannon started firing. Then on command, the riflemen. 150 Confederates made it to the rock wall to be shot by sharpshooters. The Union suffered 1,500 killed and wounded while the Confederates lost 50% of their soldiers. General Lee retreated back to Virginia after this battle.

I have to give the National Park Service a lot of kudos for this park. It is in fantastic shape. The cannon have been placed and pointed where they would have been during the battle. Trees are being removed from the battlefields that weren't there during the war. Thanks to photography back then they have a very good idea what the area looked like. Orchards on all the small farms are being planted and local farmers are planting crops in the fields. The stone walls around the fields are the ones that were there before the war. They separated the different fields for crops. The wooden fences are being rebuilt in the manner they were back then to keep the animals in place. They can do the work as they get the financing. It is definitely worth the trip to see this park. I highly recommend going to the visitor center and reserve a time to have a licensed guide take you on a tour. They drive your car and give you the history of the battles.

Good evening friends, it has been a long day. Started late, didn't get up until 10 this morning. We drove to Harpers Ferry today, another battlefield. It really wasn't much of a battle. The town is surrounded by high hills and 2 rivers. The Shanadoha river and the Potomac join there. It was said to be a town that was un defensible. They had a big Arsenal there where they made weapons for the war. The Confederates came and took the high ground, and from what I could see, it wasn't occupied by Union troops. That may not be the case, I haven't had much time to go over the data about that battle yet. I do have some pictures but haven't processed them yet. I do know that the Union artillery ran out of shells to fight with so they had to surrender. 12,500 Union solders were taken captive and it was the largest surrender in our history until the battle in the Philippines in WW2.

Yesterday we hit the Gettysburg battlefield for a brief time before a big rainstorm. I got a couple pictures for Little Round Top before we headed back to the Travel Trailer just before the sky opened up. 

The picture of the barn, you can see a cannon ball hole in the side of the bricks.

A brief post tonight, I'm sitting by the campfire and my battery is getting low, and it is late. Maybe more tomorrow. We head for home on Wednesday. Goodnight friends.

Well friends, not a lot to report today. We drove to Lititz, PA. today. A beautiful historic town not far from Lancaster. Got a picture of a Fairy village in someones side yard.

We didn't stay long but had a beautiful Lunch/Supper at the Bulls Head Tavern. We dodged rain all day and I hear we could get slammed tomorrow.

 Got back to the travel trailer and worked on a 5 picture panorama of the battlefield taken from an observation tower located on the line of North Virginia cannon. I believe we were told that there was 120+ canon on this line. The picture covers from the Eternal Flame to the North, a small clearing on the distant hill on the left of the picture, to Little Round Top and Big Round Top on the right of the picture. For those who know something about the Civil War, Culps Hill, Peach Orchard, Cemetery Ridge and others are on this picture. I enclosed a picture of the map from the observation tower so you can see where these are located. It is so hard to imagine 163,000 soldiers fighting in this area. Some fighting was done behind this tower. Look at the farmland and imagine 93,000 dead and wounded soldiers lying there. Approximately 5,000 dead horses too. I pray that this never happens to our country again.

Tomorrow we will be going to church in Gettysburg where Lincoln went to church when he came to Gettysburg to give his Gettysburg Address and dedicate the Cemetery for the soldiers. Hear that there might be major storms in the area tomorrow so we might not be out and about. Time will tell. Might make for some good pictures.      

I didn't think I would make it on here tonight. Been working on my Gettysburg pictures and it has not made my laptop happy. One picture is a combination of 3 pictures stitched together and one had to be done manually because the software wouldn't do it. I had to do a lot of blending and painting, but it came out as a nice 20x30 print of cannons.

Today we had a guided tour of the battlefield in an incredible rain. No pictures today in the battlefield. It did clear later in the day. One picture I got in the town of Gettysburg was of the front of a building downtown  with an unexploded artillery shell stuck in the wall.

It is amazing the number of buildings in downtown Gettysburg that were there during the 1863 Battle. I'm told that there are several with artillery shells in them, but I've only found 2. The shells are small and hard to see.

The big picture that I was working on with the cannon is this.

It is 20x30 inches and my laptop was not happy with it. Had to do a boot at one point and continue with my editing. The canon with the green color is the type with a smooth barrel, and it shoots a canon ball. It has a range of 1 mile. The canon in the background has a rifled barrel and can shoot 2 miles with more accuracy.

The 3 day battle with 163,000 soldiers cost 51,000 casualties killed, wounded or missing. After the tour, we went to the Dobbins House and Tavern for an early supper which was fantastic. It is also said to be haunted with many reports of people having images in photos that they didn't see in person. The downstairs tavern was wonderful and we highly recommend it.

Well friends, it's after midnight and we've got to get to bed. Hopefully I will be back on tomorrow night.
 

Good evening friends, This may be a short post as I have a lot of pictures taken today and it's late. Spent the entire day driving around the Gettysburg Battlefield. So much to see and so much information. This may be a 2 or 3 day post. Nothing will be in chronological order as I'm not that organized, especially at this time at night.

On July 2,1863 163,000 soldiers descended upon Gettysburg. I can have more details tomorrow as we are going on a tour of the battlefield with a licensed guide in our truck. Some of the happenings in the town, the Farnsworth House, now a Tavern, (great food), was occupied by the confederates. They placed a sharpshooter in the uppermost window. You can see all the bullet impacts on the building from the Union soldiers trying to shoot him from who knows how far away. The impacts were colored white at one time so you could see them.

A Young Ladies Seminary was hit by an unexploded artillery shell. It is in the outside wall of the second floor just right of center. You can see the small black dot by the 3rd window from the right.

 
 The story of this happening can be seen on the History posted by the sidewalk.

I hope you can blow these up so you can see them better. If not, let me know and I'll try to do better.



Some info on the battlefield, sad but true. So many young men lost their lives. In one area, near the Historic battle of Little Round Top, lies the area called the Wheat Field. Not a large place, and the field has a lot of large rocks in it. I asked Jean how they could grow wheat with all those rocks there. After a moment of silence, I said, it must have been stone ground wheat. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. During the battle that took place in that field and nearby woods, control switched hands 6 times, and at the end of the fighting, 4,000 soldiers lay dead or wounded.

The Battle of Little Round Top was another very bloody fight. The Union soldiers controlled the top of this hill, very rocky. They had cannon, and some rifleman and sharpshooters. The Confederates attacked from an area called the Devils Den, Slaughter Pen and Valley of Death. All three areas were small and easily defended by the Union. In the picture, the Devils Den is the area of big rocks on the left. Confederate sharpshooters were hiding there. With scopes on their rifles, they were capable of hitting targets at 1000 yards. Little Round Top was only 500 yards away. Union soldiers had to crawl around so not to be a target. The area to the left of the rocks was Slaughter Pen, and the Confederates were sitting ducks there. The Valley of Death is to the right of the rocks, and again the Confederates were easy targets there.

 

One more view from the top of Little Round Top

In this 3 day battle of 163,000 men, total casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) were 23,000 for the Union army and as many as 28,000 for the Confederate army.

More tomorrow.....

Hello fellow humans. It has been a very long time since I posted something. If I have (had) any followers, please forgive me.

I am currently camping on the Gettysburg Battlefield at the Gettysburg Battlefield Resort, part of the Travel Resorts camping network. Excellent campground. Yesterday, my wife Jean and I drove to Antietam Battlefield in Maryland. It was exciting but sad at the same time. It was a 1 day battle of 12 hours, and 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing.

We also saw the Poffenberger Farm House which was turned into a Hospital, as was many homes and businesses during the battle. This is where Clara Barton got her start by going onto the battlefield with Gruel to feed the wounded soldiers. She also ran supplies to the different hospitals who badly needed them. She was given the title of Angel of the Battlefield by a surgeon. At one point a Confederate bullet when through her sleeve and killed the soldier she was helping.

The area referred to as the cornfield saw 2,000 Union soldiers killed or wounded in a 20 minute battle. The picture I took just looked like a mowed wheat field with a couple cannons in the distance, so I'm not going to include it here. 

Another battle was for the lower bridge, crossing the Antietam Creek. All but 500 Confederate soldiers were pulled from protecting this bridge. Reinforcements were needed at other areas of battle. They were deeply dug in and it took 3 assaults from Union Soldiers to take the bridge.  This picture is of Confederate cannons overlooking the bridge, called the Burnside Bridge after the Union Commander who defeated the Confederates there.

More tomorrow of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Well....... it's official today. We will be taking a vacation of a lifetime (for us). I'm hoping for photography opportunities beyond my wildest dreams. We will be going to Alaska. It will be fall there when we go, so there should be color in the tundra.

We will fly into Anchorage a few days before the trip starts and stay with a good friend. We will do a cruise to 12 glaciers, getting quite close as it is a small ship. I will be looking for some shot of reflections and sunsets there too. The trip starts with a bus ride to a lodge near Mount McKinley. There we will do a 3 hour hike with great views (so we are told) of the mountain and landscapes. The next day we take a bus ride to another lodge in Denali Park. This stay will be 2 nights, 3 days. From there it's a scenic train ride to Whittier where we pick up a cruise ship.

The cruise will be 7 days stopping at several towns and glaciers in the Inside Passage. The destination is Vancouver where we fly home.

I will be trying to learn all I can to take my photography up a couple notches as I may never get back to Alaska. I could never forgive myself if I came home with mediocre pictures. The last thing I want to do is get home , look at my pictures and think of the 3 ugly sisters (shoulda, coulda, and woulda). My dream is to be a great photographer, not just a photographer.