Day is Done, Gone the Sun: How Gettysburg Opened My Eyes

I have been meaning to write this post ever since I got back from my east coast adventure, which was over a month ago. I guess it never really seemed like the right time and place. That time is now.

On July 3 of this year, my parents and I set off on a road trip headed east toward the 150th memoriam of the Battle of Gettysburg. The original battle took place between July 1 and July 3 of 1863. The reenactment however took place from the July 4-7.

It is interesting looking back because I built up my expectations so much for the event. I remember hearing about it last fall and begging my dad to decide to go. That's about nine months of high hopes. This doesn't sound in any way as if it could be in keeping with the post title, I know. I do just have to say at the get-go that the event itself was almost shamefully Farby, don't I look all posh using technical terms? For those of you (most of the world) who don't know what "Farb" is, it's a slang term that reenactors use to describe someone who is amusingly, or just ridiculously, anachronistic. In some ways it wasn't much different from Pipestone in that it's touristy for the spectators. They kind of overdid it with the grandstand seating around the battlefield however. As one of the members from our group put it, it was pretty much like an outdoor fair except with people in costume walking around. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to walk through the Yankee or Confederate camps; I think they would have been a nice relief. We knew to an extent that this event was for the spectators when we set out; the reenactor-only event was the weekend before and extremely hardcore. However it just seemed exaggerated.

In terms of reenactors however, it was pretty cool. There were a couple thousand soldiers that were present, with representatives from twelve different countries. When we were in the town itself at one point, we heard some Scotsmen talking...it was amazing! The reenactment was held a couple of miles out of town in the opposite of the actual battlefields. The first day was ok; it was ungodly hot and humid so we actually left the site in the afternoon to go explore the town, but we made sure to return for the camp dance that night which was pretty awesome. I came to the conclusion that Minnesota soldier reenactors need to learn how to dance and come to the balls, because the other states are showing us up. There were so many attractive soldiers that were dancing!! (There were so many couples that wanted to do the Grand March that it took over half and hour and we never even finished all the figures O.O) Ok I'm done.

The events of Sunday July 7th are the main reason behind this post.
Sunday afternoon was the reenactment of Pickett's Charge, the final skirmish of the Battle of Gettysburg. For this reenactment, nearly every soldier that was present onsite participated. For those of you with imaginations, (although I'll post some pictures), think of the sight of masses of gray and blue uniforms moving as one and intermingling. For a girl who's only seen small reenactments with 50-100 soldiers with was quite awe-full.

 

Although we had been to the previous day's reenactment, not to mention probably a hundred other battles in my lifetime, for some reason this one caught me. Part of it was the commentary. They have commentary at Pipestone as well, but I think the sad retelling of the events of Pickett's Charge coupled with the sheer magnitude of the soldiers on the battlefield was what really got to me. In Pickett's Charge, the Rebs tried to charge up a hill that was strongly guarded by the Yanks. Due to narrow breakthrough points and the resultant bottle-necking of the troops, the Confederates were essentially slaughtered. There were unbelievable losses on both sides, but to watch one gray uniform after another go down brought tears to my eyes. This is when it truly hit that this was really a spectator event. There were people behind me who were not so much laughing I guess as saying things like "Ooh ow, that's gotta hurt" in reference to one of the soldiers dying. It genuinely made me mad the reactions of the spectator; to them it was entertainment to me it was history. I felt bad because this time last year my brother and I were voting on who had the funniest way of going down once shot at Pipestone. But like I've said, this was so different from Pipestone.

I think the eeriest part of the afternoon was that not only was it the same weather before the Charge as it was on the actual day 150 years ago (humid, hot and 87 degrees), it started raining cats and dogs about ten minutes after the reenactment ended. Apparently just after Pickett's Charge ended the first time around (originally) it started pouring and the humidity finally broke. It was a fitting, if spooky, end to the whole event.

After we left the site my mom and I went to visit the actual battlefields and the cemetery. We drove part of the way around the 10-mile loop of sorts that hits all the sites of the skirmishes with memorials everywhere. One of the ones we made sure to hit was the Eternal Light and Peace Memorial. It was still sporadically raining and windy so the flame kept going out, relighting itself and going out again, but I managed to get one shot of it lit. We also found the memorial to the 1st Minnesota.

 

 



We ended up at the cemetery at sunset and by that point I couldn't take it any more and I started crying. to see row after row of markers. I mean I've seen my share of grave markers having grown up rambling around cemeteries with my dad, but all the unknowns was just heart-breaking. This is my favorite shot from the whole trip:



I've rambled on for ages and now I'll come to the point.
Gettysburg changed my perceptions completely. As I said, I've been going to battle reenactments since I was a wee one, canon smoke is actually one of my favorite smells, and they don't phase me; this one did. And it was because now the soldiers had names and faces. At Pipestone the soldiers are never reenacting a specific battle, as none were fought in Minnesota, so it's easier to disengage from the fact that you are watching people die. That was what was so hard about Gettysburg; each person that fell represented someone in that cemetery. I mean sure any battle reenactment could be said to be memories of fallen soldiers buried everywhere; but it's not the same thing. Sitting watching the reenactment and then again at the cemetery I realized that although we immerse ourselves in history, it is still all too easy to forget that we are re-living a war. I think this is especially hard for civilian reenactors because typically we deal in etiquette, dancing, tea-drinking, and fashion. But even for soldiers it can be difficult to remember.
When we were at the cemetery my mom and I met some men who had participated in the reenactment earlier in the afternoon and they were commenting on how strange it was. Even more so they told us about how they had practiced for the reenactment earlier that week actually on the original battlefield. On the anniversary of the charge, on July 3, they were out reenacting a battle that had taken place on that same spot 150 years earlier. I'll never forget one of the men talking about how he got goosebumps when he was trespassing on the soil that still holds the blood of thousands of men. He said it really hit him.
History is a beautiful thing, and objectivity is essential in some aspects of its study, but when we forget the pain and loss and don't allow ourselves to empathize across the centuries, we become desensitized. It's like when I was looking out over one of the battlefields on the way to the cemetery: all I was fenced in meadows pretty much covered in brush and sometimes various livestock. I had to stand there for a few moments and picture the noises and smells of battle as well as the scenes of fighting men for the importance of such an innocuous field to really sink in.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that Gettysburg changed how I perceive reenacting. In a somewhat convoluted way it's become even more important to me because of the depth in meaning and emotion that (should) go into it. No longer will I go to a battle purely for entertainment (although strictly speaking there were some spectators to early battles during the Civil War); no longer will I think only of teas and balls and hoops, with only the vague mention of  "the war".

I recently read a line from a poem written by a fellow Katie in 1968 (the poem is all about being a conscientious objector)

"As peace lovers, as dissenters, we are perhaps spared warfare

But never spared war."

-Penelope Suess   "Noncombatant"

Although the poem is about the Vietnam War (despite Congress never declaring it so, people hundreds of thousands of people died, thus it is a WAR)..anyway...even though it's about events a century later than I have been discussing, I think it still fits the circumstances perfectly. We choose to portray people living during the Civil War; we should not forget the war, it is integral to the very fabric of the lives of the people we portray no matter where they may be. Too often we forget the pain and suffering of the past, excusing this with "It was so long ago, the world has moved on". Yes the world has moved on, but without the pain and grief and struggle, how are we to portray truth?