A Year in Gettysburg

Here I am! I'm still alive! You may have started to wonder, but I'm still here.

I've been very busy...yeah, I know that's not a very good excuse, but I hope to explain some of that in this post. But where do I start? I've been absent from here for what. Almost a year? Much too long.

Well, I've gotten more active in some events around Gettysburg. In October I attended the Civil War Trust's event for the Lee Headquarters grand opening. That was exciting. My grandfather and I were able to attend the event, it was a beautiful day (if but a bit chilly), and best of all (drum roll please) I got to meet Garry Adelman! (For those of you who may be new to the blog, Garry Adelman is a historian, Licensed Battlefield Guide and the director of Education for the Civil War Trust. He puts together many of the "In4" videos discussed in some of my articles. I'm kinda obsessed with him.)
Okay, well, I took a selfie with him. Is that a formal introduction? Maybe not....


                                

                                 

What Does an Ebenezer Have in Common with a Monument?

"Monuments and archaeological pieces serve as testimonies of man's greatness and establish a dialogue between civilizations showing the extent to which human beings are linked." Statesman Vicente Fox

"The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veterans institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought." Politician Henry Waxman

Monument at Gettysburg Battlefield

Monuments help us remember the past. I don't know about you, but I saw about a dozen of them just driving through town today. And everytime I pass one, I think about what man once stood there, what man fought there, what man fell on that hill and what man never made it home cause he died on that spot.

Okay, so that's a tad bit morbid, but seriously, we have to think about this stuff. 51,000 casualties fell at Gettysburg alone. Now there are 1,328 monuments, markers and memorials to remember those men just in Gettysburg.

GETTysburg! GETTysburg!

 I started wondering the other day if I would have to change my vocabulary to re-enact. Did Americans use contractions? I started fretting that I would mess up and be a bad representative if I spoke like modern day.

Doing some researching, I found that contractions have been around a lot longer than I thought. So they're safe. (Another reassurance is I had forgotten about the word "ain't", a slang contraction for 'am not' or 'is not' and prevalent during this time period.)

We'll never be able to completely explain how they talked in the 19th century, since none of us lived in that time. However, below is a video I just watched that address this topic.