Been to Gettysburg with my son. Wish I could have had these images at hand when i was walking the land. It's so sobering to know that you are literally where a man fell. Glad it has been preserved as sacred.
ktpinnacle..In school it was just places and dates, in later years visits to Gettysburg and other sites added another dimension but , as you stated, the images of the fallen soldiers made it horribly real..
Very interesting to see how forests have grown and how monuments have been placed. When you visit Gettysburg and other battlefields it is hard to imagine the carnage, the horror, the death, the panic, the sweat, the fierceness of battle. There is always a hint of melancholy too, especially on misty mornings or in autumn or winter and you wonder whether all those dead souls lie easy under that sacred soil. It is good to take children to see these battlefields. I grew up during the 1960s when the Centennials of all these battles took place. One summer my parents took us three kids to all the VA battlefields and we went from one to the other by car. I especially liked any displays of uniforms and equipment, which really humanized battle for us. This instilled in me a great love of history. We loved getting little souvenirs of these battles to remind us of this trip.
I was using my metal detector in a field in New Hampshire and found a brass civil war infantry coat button. Some veteran came home from the war and still used his coat because those coats were quality and people didn't have as much clothing as they do now. It was an amazing feeling to hold something that was last touched so long ago.
I've found spear points in Africa and lead musket balls in Europe.. ...each time they all have that personal aura you describe, and it never really stops being that way ..:))
I found the pictures of the guys dead on the ground most moving. The fact that you have found the exact locations where those unfortunate men gasped their last breath. Those poor souls laying in a field and bleeding out scared, in pain and ultimately alone in the middle of a battle. Will we ever learn, will we ever gain empathy.
I think I remember reading that some of those photos that show deceased soldiers were posed. There are some famous photos taken where deceased soldiers were moved into the place and not where the actual soldier perished. There's also at least 1 photo that I know of where uniformed men posed as dead soldiers for purpose of the photo . That would be the slaughter pen photo. The national park service has a great website that shows before and after photos of Gettysburg. You can slide between now and then.
We went to Gettysburg and visited on an early evening in mid July. It was hot and sticky, and we had the battlefield to ourselves. It was beautiful as the sun was setting, thousands of fire flies appeared across the fields. It was amazing. I stopped to wonder if the soldiers saw the same in the evenings after the battles. One of the most spiritual things I have seen.
Hon. Horace Greely: Executive Mansion, Dear Sir Washington, August 22, 1862. I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. Yours, A. LINCOLN
My ancestor Thomas Franklin Bailey served with the 11th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry at Gettysburg. He was wounded on the first day of the fighting on the Emmitsburg Road. Survived the battle and the war. He died in 1930.
The first time I was there around 1974, my dad parked his camper at some campground that was in a field. I remember digging in a brook that was only inches deep with water, I found 10 lead bullets in about an hour.
@@donrutter6765 ... Around that same time I remember my dad had 4 bullets from the civil war that I stupidly lost somehow, probably when I brought them to show-and-tell at school. He also had several pure silver quarters that I took from his dresser and used them to play pinball at the local bowling alley. Sigh.... Kids! I've wanted to hunt for bullets here at Kennesaw mountain in northwest Atlanta but it's very clear now that taking anything from a national battlefield is a criminal offense. There goes all the fun! :(
Way cool! Many of my Ancestors died through the Civil War and at Gettysburg. I have Cherokee ancestors and Irish who fought on BOTH sides. I imagine my Ancestors aren't so different from any one else... We're all kind of related to each other some way here in the USA.
The first time I ever set foot on a battlefield at Gettysburg I cried. I had no idea what came over and it was though I was engulfed by the sadness and tragedy. I have never felt anything like it before nor since. My late husband and I loved Gettysburg and when he died it was some time before I could visit again. It was an overnight stay and just once. Next weekend I am am returning and I am sure it will be very emotional for me. It will also be on the exact day when so many soldiers lost their lives 157 years ago😢
@Patriot Lady, Your post was very moving. Some things in life are so powerful, it overwhelmes your soul. The Civil War and all the American soldiers who died; those who fought to keep America united, and the Confederates who fought for their States'Rights. It was the most powerful war that I know of.
I could only imagine. I worked with a guy that had visited Auschwitz while he was in the Air Force and he said you can feel the pain and anguish of that place. He said you feel it as you enter the iron gates.
I had a great grandfather(many greats) who fought at Gettysburg and later died from his injury. To be able to see your photos helps me to actually see the loss and devastation that isn't shown in history books. Thank you.
Wayne greene. You should i moved from connected to Pennsylvania. Lancaster im about 1 hour away from Gettysburg s . Its a mazing to visit. We we not enemies yet we were . They were fighting for diferent beliefa . North tobstop slavery .the south wanting to be its own country . and armistead were best friends . Then came the war both on different sides . And did not want to meet on the battlefield. B when armistead found out that his friend was hit. He kept saying im so sorry . It was a sad war friends against each other . Fathers and sons agaist each other so sad .
Love then and now photos like this - thanks for posting it. I'm from the UK and just last night finished Shelby Foote's three books on the American civil war. Truly a fascinating subject made all the better for videos like this. I've always wanted to visit the states and see New York or the Bears play at soldier field. Now all I want to do is visit these sort of soldier fields
If you do come to America, most of the Civil War battlefields are in Virginia; Gettysburg is a bit over the state line from VA in Pennsylvania. The battlefields are all relatively close so you can visit several in one day. Appomattox Court House, where the peace was signed between Generals Lee and Grant, is restored and very interesting to visit -- it's where it all finally ended. I am glad someone from the UK is interested in American history. We visited London and Scotland a few years ago. Walking up Glen Coe where a famous battle took place was as sacred a land as is Gettysburg. Shelby Foote was interviewed extensively for Ken Burns's documentary Civil War. Watch that before visiting. It will prepare you as an overall introduction to the Civil War. As a child during the Centennial of the Civil War back in the 1960s my parents took us three kids on a summer vacation to visit the VA battlefields. It was a trip we could take by car, living an hour northeast of Gettysburg.....we went on school field trips to Gettysburg. One of my history teachers became a Gettysburg battlefield guide. Ghosts are said to be visible at Gettysburg too, if you are interested in the paranormal. ha, ha.....One would expect that with all the carnage of that terrible battle. A sense of melancholy seems to pervade these places where so many men died. I have been to Gettysburg about four times. Aged 71 I wish I could visit again but I live in FL so that may not happen. It is an amazing place to visit.
Thank you. I visited the battlefield while I was a kid in Pennsylvania. The photographs of dead soldiers are hard for kids to look at, but you did a very thoughtful job. I think that your film had a nice ending with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson dedicating the battlefield along with Mrs. Kennedy was touching. A+
I was so impressed by your photo collection past and present. I'm so interested in history and have been to Gettysburg when i was younger wow it really moves a person. Great job 😢
Thank you for creating the then and now images! They add a great deal of interest to what is already an awesome place in history. Being one that has done similar work in Virginia City NV, I fully understand the thrill of finding a location of a photo and finding conclusive evidence of where history actually took place! I call it living history. Thanks again!
i am a filipino.i love our philipine history but nothing beats american. i love american history . i love the stories, the people and the patriotism of americans. "mabuhay kayong mga amerikano"(long live americans)
I still can not understand why they arranged to fight the way they did at Gettyburg, North and South facing each other like sitting ducks in a large area of farm land and so many were shot down the way they were and that's all I am going to say about that
+Connie Charley......the battle itself started when Confederates soldiers went into Gettysburg looking for shoes and accidently bumped into a Yankee unit and a skirmish broke out and it continued. Longstreet didn't like the battle field either and felt Lee shouldn't engage the enemy there, too well defended, therefore he agreed with you. Longstreet hesitated when ordered to attack because of this and he had to take a lot of the blame for the defeat.
I'm actually working on a video of historical photos and modern photos similar to this one, it's a painstaking process and a lot of bike riding, I don't blame the uploader.
I have been to Gettysburg one time, and it was about 1990 or so. Toured it from my vehicle as I only had one day there, and wish I could have spent more time. Next time I'd like to do it on a bicycle over the course of a few days just to have the time to stop and read the memorials and markers. I had studied the battle for years as a kid growing up, so when my daughter and I drove into Gettysburg from the west to east, I recognized so much of it just from the pictures I had seen in books....the Round Tops, Cemetery Ridge, Seminary Ridge, the Railroad Cut, etc. Thanks for the pictures!
I just love these then and now pictorial!!! Keep 'em comin', and thank you for the pictures you have already sent. I am a civil war buff, and to go to places like Gettysburg, and stand where generals, and a President once stood is a treasure to me. God bless
My great great great grandfather fought at Gettysburg during Pickett charge, his name is on the Pennsylvania monument. I as a child spent 2 years living there and spent many a days at that battlefield.
Brian Raymen ... "were the officers very polite to each other like they have been portrayed in the film ?" I would say that everyone were much more polite back then. Another sign of just how far our society has morally deteriorated.
@@jamig.7254 Just part of the history of an ongoing extremely violent nation . First they exterminated the indigenous nations . Then after slaughtering each other . then killed many millions more during the expansion of the American Imperial Empire . Brilliant social scientist Carl Marx once said . The gross extremes and contradictions within American will eventually destroy it . A case of whom the gods make mad ,will also destroy ?
Thank you for your work. I'm from Maryland, but my parents bought a property and cabin just north of Gettysburg, so I spent quite a lot of time in and around Gettysburg and its battlefields. I'm intimately familiar with the countryside, the rock formations, etc and I so wish I'd had these comparison picts to look at while I was there. There is a definite intense, heavy emotional feel at some of those sites, but your photos ought to be posted on placards at each site for the richness and context they add. I appreciate your hard work and effort to get each one just right.
Visiting Gettysburg is on my bucket list. I wonder if I would also feel that emotional, tragic intensity. I visited London 20 years ago and in certain parts of the city I felt the presence of ancient evils and crimes.....
@@lorenwegele4250 It is beautiful and peaceful now, but you do feel the presence of the other place in time and reality that it was. Like an energetic overlay...
Thank heaven that the nation preserved this very sacred place. I have been there countless times and always honor the sacrific of these young soldiers from both sides. Never stop honoring our galient dead.
I was just there this spring with my class and used this video prior to the trip to show the students the reality of the battlefield. Many of them recognized where the dead had lain and walked around those spots out of respect.
I was struck by, with some exceptions, not how much the battlefield had changed, but how it had remained the same. Let us hope, that those with little to no understanding of the hearts and minds of the men who fought, will not want to tear down any more memorials on the Confederate side.
This is a National Military Park. This will remain as it is to those that fought and died at that spot. There are many others across the east. Quite a bit different sticking a statue of a Confederate general in a town square during the Jim Crow Era.
I was there also...Soooooo sad it was...I actually SMELLED death in the Air...How do i know what real death smells like????????? I do Mortuary Science...I more then most do KNOW the true SMELL of Death..............😢
Went to High School in Gettysburg. Lived there for a couple years afterwards, worked loading lifts at Ski Liberty. Spent many hours on the battlefield. Learned to fly there. The tower that used to be there was a great landmark to find my way home. Enjoyed my chance to bond with such a historic place.
Man...I just have to get there before I die. I'm 65 (2020) and just went thru a tough cancer and some amputations. Doing well now, but it really caught my attention. I live in southern Ariz, and Gettysburg has always just seemed like so darn far away...I just let other trips take precedence. But now it's becoming more urgent. I know full well that when I'm alone out there, I'll break down and begin crying. I feel so much respect for the men and women of both sides. Man....brother against brother. God rest them all peacefully, I pray.
We live in California but visited Gettysburg several times when back east visiting one of our daughters, two who lived in WashDC area. Our daughter Katie was in the NCWA - National Civil War Association and performed reenactments of Civil War battles. She knew as much about the history of the Gettysburg battle as any tour guide we could have met there. She mentioned Pickett's charge which was the 'high water mark' for the south in the war.
Been to Gettysburg twice. Want to go back again. The battlefield was so big it takes a few trips to absorbe it all. Beautiful town and you can feel the history when you are there
Desde la distancia en mi Argentina, los saludo y les ofrezco mis más sinceros respetos por los combatientes de ambos bandos que pelearon cada uno con una intención, pero con la idea de formar un estado de hermanos. Tristes imágenes en algunos momentos pero de gran valor histórico que sirve de ejemplo a toda la humanidad. ¡¡Excelente material!!. ¡¡Gracias x compartirlo con el internet!!.
