I’ve cleared Washington, DC, and spent a day in Gettysburg.  Considerable time and money has been spent to preserve and explain the battle here, money I consider well spent.  And in what I’ve come to believe is an instant, karmic reality, it can’t be preserved.  The time came, the players arrived, events happened and then everyone but the dead moved on.

Seminary Ridge is still a seminary and still a ridge.  However, there are signs which read “Seminary employees only beyond this sign” on a road to a large parking lot and buildings.  You can see Little Round Top, but not without also seeing farm buildings, roads, billboards, the natural encroachment of an increasing population who naturally wanted to reclaim the land devastated by war as fast as possible.

In order to imagine the troop movements one must disregard this house, that barn, those cars, a few fences and a lot of asphalt and concrete.  It can be done, and must be constantly refreshed as one imaginatively recreates the situation.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visits, got a feel for the terrain, and viewed the artifacts with interest.  But the Matthew Brady and other photographs mostly reinforce what you know you can’t see, and smell and hear.  It seems a bit like sailing around Leyte Gulf, imagining the naval battle their, or around the English Channel and Irish coasts to see how that battle went or what happened to the Spanish Armada.

The Beatles song “Yesterday” comes to mind, and the more yesterdays pass the more the original scene is changed to reflect the “todays” in which we all live.

On  to Antietam.