Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire GETTYSBURG

It's been a few years, but pre-COVID the Gaslight Inn (a B&B in town) was a great place to stay and if you contract a private battlefield guide, they'll come have breakfast with you and pick you up right from the hotel.

Thinking of heading there next spring. I need all the information as well. Why someone would go to Costa Rica or some other port when there is so much history in America…

His command was destroyed, he lost his leg, and the gap he created in the Union line was only plugged by Hancock sacrificing the entire 1st Minnesota. Sickles didn't do anything to ruin the Confederates day

Anyway, there is an auto tour. Everything is explained along the way. You get the Auto tour map at the Visitors center. It will take you out to the Day 1 action then take you through the day 2 action and ultimately you'll end up at the day 3 action. From there you'll continue on to Culps hill which saw action on Days 1,2, and 3. From there you can go to Cavalry field

There’s a lot the movie left out

It had to though. It was long enough as it was. But it completely ignored Culps Hill which tied up an entire third of the Army of Northern Virginia and it ignored all Cavalry action sadly

If you spend the night while touring the tug fork stay in Pikeville Ky ....Not many good places to eat or stay in Matewan or williamson west virgina the place caters to the ATV trail riders.....I grew up in the south willamson area and own a Farm 20 mins from there....My wife is from Matewan she just informed me they are a couple of nice B&B in Matewan ran by one of her former class mates and shes a excellent cook....

Agreed 👍

I'm beginning to think this will take two different trips. The second one would be after you digest the first one and figure out what you missed the first go round. The LBH was like that for me and this one is so much bigger and took so much longer.

Have been there MANY times and still get a feeling of reverence and awe everytime I visit! Will often read a new book or article about a particular segment of battle/unit etc and try to experience that particular area with a new perspective. As someone else said I believe Gettysburg is definately a place every American who can should visit. In fact this thread makes me want to head there again soon.

High water mark is the spot for me cemetery ridge a part of me some how was there 🤷‍♂️

That spot means a lot to me as well. I like to just stand there and try to imagine what it was like

19th VA infantry I’m proud to say my ppls was there crossed the angle 👍👍👍

Had the Confederates won a resounding victory would the Union have negotiated a settlement ratifying secession? I know we can't say for certain but I wonder.

Would Lee have forced them all the way back to defend D.C.

The smartest thing was to whip them dam Yankees into oblivion on Virginia soil like we’d been doing 😃

Stand at Buford's statue on the Chambersburg Pike and envision seeing the Southern Army marching toward you and remembering all the times they have been the defenders and your comrades have charged their lines, dying in droves without dislodging them.

Walk Pickett's Charge, start from the staging area at the foot of the hill and go on up to the Angle. Time yourself, it took my wife and I 17 1/2 minutes. As you are walking, imagine that ridge in front of you full of Yankees shooting at you and your friends . Also look to your right, imagine that hill a mile or so that way has a Yankee artillery battery on it, firing solid shot along the lines of your comrades.

Also, stand at the Devil's Den and look up Little Round Top, imagine trying to climb it. And stand where the 20th Maine were on Little Round Top and imagine that you were the end of the line and your entire army depends on you holding that tiny piece of ground.


We've been to Gettysburg three times, it is always humbling.

Jubal Early could’ve walked into the city a year later if he’d been a day earlier

Sir I don’t doubt your expertise but it is my understanding that the Confederates were certainly surprised and disconcerted to see them there. They had planned a neat echelon attack wherein they would flank the left end of the Union like and roll it up.

That plan beginning to unravel from the outset given the last-minute Union occupation of Little Round top and the rough terrain at that end of the field.

If Sickles lost his entire command it was won only at an equivalent cost in Confederate casualties and, more importantly, lost momentum and time on the Confederate side (how many times did the Wheatfield change hands?). The time lost was absolutely critical, Longstreet not having initiated the Day 2 attack on Cemetery Ridge until 4pm.

250 men of the 1st Minnesota were sent in to plug a gap, and around 200 of those men were killed, wounded or captured. I believe that 80% casualty rate was the record loss by any one regiment in a single action on either side during that whole war, but several other units approached that, including I believe at least one Confederate regiment west of Gettysburg on Day 1. Catastrophic losses in an attack were not that unusual.

As for Sickles losing a leg, he wasn’t alone. A few Generals on both sides lost limbs during that conflict.

Barksdale should have been cut loose the same moment as hood

At approximately noon on July 3, 1863, Custer and his men heard enemy cannon fire: Stuart’s signal to Lee that he was ready for action.

Thus began the melee that was East Cavalry Field at Gettysburg. Much back and forth preceded Custer’s career-defining action. An hour or two into the battle, after many of his cavalrymen had been reduced to hand-to-hand infantry-style fighting, Custer ordered a charge of one of his regiments and led it into action himself, screaming one of the battle’s most famous lines: “Come on, you Wolverines!” Around three o’clock, Stuart mounted a final charge, which mowed down Union cavalry – until it ran into Custer’s Wolverines, who stood firm, with Custer wielding a sword at their head, and broke the Confederates’ last attack.