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Local attorney and son share experience of Gettysburg
MICHAEL CALLAHAN
Special to Legal News
Published: July 26, 2013
Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, Pickett’s Charge, these and many other events that shaped our history commemorated a 150 years this past July 1, 2 and 3. The Battle of Gettysburg Pennsylvania was the site of the turning point of our Civil War and a few short days ago roughly 250,000 people converged on the sleepy little “borough” in southeastern Pennsylvania to take part in a 10-day event beginning June 28 and ending July 7.
Two of those people were my 17-year-old son, Michael and myself. I was at the 100th anniversary in July, 1963 at age 5 with my father and grandfather. My son has heard stories about that event and has been to Gettysburg with me at least half a dozen times. While we are both history buffs, there is another reason we were so interested in this battle and this time.
His name was George. He enlisted in August 1862 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. He was with the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry Company H assigned to Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps. He told his son, who told his son, my Grandpa, that they rode all night, from July 1, 1863 until they arrived on the field at Gettysburg approximately 10 a.m. on the morning of July 2.
My son and I stood roughly on that spot where he fought. It today is identified by a marker to honor Company H. If you look to your left approximately 150 to 200 yards, you look up at Little Round Top, where the fiercest fighting took place later that day. Approximately 400 yards to your right, is the field that Pickett led his men on July 3, only to be stopped at the High Water Mark of the Union center. Had the Irish Brigade that held the Union center failed, Washington would have been next, and the course of history would have been forever changed.
We toured the battle field by day and at dusk. As we passed the Pennsylvania Monument on Hancock Avenue, the largest on the field, we could feel a sense of pride. My great-great-grandfather’s name is forever memorialized there along with over 34,000 native Pennsylvanians who defended their homes those three days in July. He survived and according to regimental history, his company participated in 66 engagements including many you have heard of such as Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor, 2nd Bull Run and Appomattox. He mustered out with Company L on June 7, 1865. My father still has his original discharge papers.
In addition to activities along the battlefield, there has been for many years reenactments held each year in conjunction with the anniversary. This year was the biggest ever. The National Park Service, who maintains the battlefield, no longer allows the reenactments on the battlefield itself. It is held on nearby farms.
This year the reenactment took place from July 4 through July 7. Over 12,000 re-enactors took part in the event concluding late in the afternoon of Sunday, July 7 with Pickett’s Charge.
True to history, the event opened up with a long, loud artillery barrage, with the largest collection of Civil War cannons since the war itself. The noise thundered over the field as cannon after cannon fired. It gave some sense of what one must have felt 150 years before, without the risk!
The temperature reached 95 dgrees on Saturday. Even though we had hats, shorts, SPF-rated shirts and ice cold beverages, it still was oppressive. One can only imagine what these brave men on both sides must have felt dressed in wool and flannel uniforms with only warm water to drink.
As the reenactment of Pickett’s Charge culminated, and the Rebels once again being repulsed by the Union at the High Water Mark, the heavens opened and we were treated with a good, old-fashioned thunderstorm and downpour.
We drove home having fulfilled a promise, one made a number of years ago by my son that he would go with me, and one made by me long before that I would attend to pay honor and tribute to my great great-grandfather and all those others who fought to preserve our Union, those three days in July, 150 years ago.