On the outskirts of town, when we started to see memorials and statues and cannon we pulled over and joined a tour group and started learning how all these AMERICANS young and old and sometimes related were killing eachother for the benefit of politicians and other rich guys who wanted more money and more control. Sounds like your normal war I s'pose. It was about slavery but also about economics and ....I dunno....WAR ..huh...what is it good for.....absolutely nuthin'.. Anyway , the guide presented it all with respectful and informative wit and at the end of his 'presentation ' realized the visitor centre had closed and locked his bicycle inside . We gave him a lift into town and the National Military Park Museum and Visitor Centre and he gave us complimentary tickets to the museum and movie and the Cyclorama. Amazing ....give it a google. Another lucky thing was that there was a traditional / folk/ bluegrassy music festival going on that weekend.
Instruments I'd never seen ( or heard ) before
Fife and drum bands
Yankee buskers and the President himself
It took all the next day to do a tour of the battlefields. I've never seen so many statues and memorials.
Every state and town that had supplied the heroes and victims had put up a memorial or statue of some sort. That's my North Carolina boys , although I guess my sympathies were with the Union.
If it's a dilemma for me......how was it for them!
Note the statues all through the trees
Gun emplacements . Hundreds of them..still in place.
Guys in dress to tell you stories
Civil War fanatics who camp out.....and tell you more stories
And at lunch they get fed by the Colonel.
It's one of those experiences that can hardly be done in pictures and comment blog style.
Huge...moving...you have to be there.
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