Gettysburg 150 - Thank You National Park Service

Originally published on forbes.com on July 8, 2013
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This is the final Gettysburg installment.  I want to thank my regular readers for their patience with me writing a series of posts about what I did on my summer vacation.  The last time I attempted that form was in 1966 and on reflection, I think the teacher involved in the assignment was just trying to keep Class 1-E of Xavier High School occupied.  For what it is worth, the major highlight of that essay was a description of jumping off the high board at Palisades Amusement Park into the worlds largest outdoor salt-water swimming pool.

I am not going to apologize.  The Gettysburg Sesquicentennial was a major event and I think, thanks to my feeble efforts, forbes.com is the only national platform with reasonably thorough coverage.  I hate to think what the Tax Court has been up to with me not watching them for a week, but I will be looking tonight and let you know.  I need to wrap up with some advice, some acknowledgements and a proposal.

Some Advice

A couple of my blogging buddies( they know who they are) were green with envy at my being able to make the Gettysburg Sesquicentennial.  There will probably be no Sesquicentennial event quite as impressive between now and April 2015, but there will be plenty more and you should go to at least one.  Be a real timer and pick out a key event and go there regardless of whether any commemoration is scheduled.  Be sure to write to me and let me know how it goes.  More importantly the real time experiences at Gettysburg were special, but they were not actually that special.  Anytime you go there or any of the other historic sites in our National Park System, you  will learn something. 

 At Gettysburg, be sure to do a private tour.  It is only $65 (but be sure to budget a generous tip).  Focus more on talks by the rangers and the licensed guides than some of the schlocky stuff in town, although ghost tours do have their place.

If you are going to Civil War Land (i.e. Southern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia) from New England, do not listen to your Garmon or Tom-tom or do what Mapquest tells you.  They will probably tell you to barrel down 95 or something like that and cross the Hudson River at the Tappan Zee Bridge or, God forbid, the George Washington Bridge.  Don't get me wrong.  The metro New York area is a marvellous destination with many wonderful things to see, like the Forbes Galleries for example.  It is not an area to go through on the way to some place else,.  In Hartford, get on Route 84 and stay on Route 84.  You will cross the Hudson River at Newburgh and start going South when you hit Route 81.  It is a lovely drive.  The same principle applies in reverse for those coming from the South to visit the historic sites of New England, such as the birthplace of Clara Barton in Oxford, Massachusetts.

If you go to any large scale sesquicentennial events, take the Park Service advice seriously.  Have a back pack with sunscreen and water.  And here is a tip to make new friends.  Have a couple of extra bottles of water on hand to help out the unprepared.

Finally, be sure to thank the rangers for the great job that they do.  I think they are among the most under-appreciated members of the federal work force.  Not as under-appreciated as the IRS, but that would take some doing.

About The Rangers

The rangers at Gettysburg were really busy so I did not tie them up with questions too much.  On the way back, we stopped at the Delaware Water Gap National Park, where things were a bit less hectic. (By the way, that park is another really good reason to take the long way round when going to or from New England) I spoke with a supervisor of interpreters there and he explained a couple of things to me.  

Even though they do all sorts of different things, they all wear the same uniform and are referred to as rangers.  If you are observant, you will note that some of them are packing heat.  Those are the law enforcement rangers who will arrest you if you need arresting.  Another fellow told me that all the history guys long to work at Gettysburg and that only the most knowledgeable, many of them published authors end up there. 

 He told me that material that you see in the parks is subject to a great deal of quality control that goes through an office in Harpers Ferry.  I can't help but remember the comment by Ranger Beth Parnicza after helping lead me, my covivant and a couple hundred others through the woods around Chancellorsville where Stonewall Jackson's men rolled up the XI Corps - "We have the best job in the world".  All the rangers project that attitude and I believe it is totally genuine.

The mission of the Park Service is:

to promote and regulate the use of the...national parks...which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations

I don't think I have ever seen a team of people more on mission than the Park Rangers.  That includes the team at Joseph B Cohan and Associates in the eighties.  Of course, our mission, unstated but easily inferred of "Anything for a buck.  Try not to get sued." was somewhat less inspiring.

A Proposal

The next big event at Gettysburg is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  I asked a few people whether President Obama will be there and apparently it is not decided yet.  I'll be really disappointed if he is not, but I will not be totally satisfied if he is the only President there.  I think all our living Presidents should be there.  Imagine Mr. Lincoln looking into the future and seeing how things worked from his speech.  He sees five of his successors.  One of them is a former Illinois Senator.  Three of them are former governors of states of the then Confederacy.  Two of them are members of his own party, one of them a war hero.  Finally one of them is our first Aftican American President.  I think he would be very pleased.  I've started a We The People petition. Please sign it.

Epilogue

CV is back working at the national firm and I'm off on my free lancing.  As for the Gettysburg people I have introduced

You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.

Obviously my petition went nowhere.  President Obama did not attend in November.  He took some flack for that.  It would have been a security nightmare, so it is probably just as well.  Although, you can find out about it on forbes.com, you will have to wait till November to read about it here.

Searching For A Little Piece of New Jersey In Virginia

This piece is part of my real time Civil War Real Time Sesquicentennial Series.  It originally appeared in on forbes.com on May 6, 2013.

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville seemed like the perfect focus for a vacation.  It was the only battle that my single Civil War ancestor, Private Patrick Lyons, Fifer, Company K,  22nd New Jersey is credited with participating in.  

My covivant thought otherwise.  CV's tolerance for things historical is limited.  Thanks to our fantastic national park system, I was able to plan a campaign that worked for both of us.  Although planned as a vacation, I'm not sure whether it counts as one for me, although it does for CV.  I was "mustered out" on May 1 turning my laptop and building pass into the nice HR lady. At any rate, CV and I hit the road late on May 2 spending the night in a budget version of the Bates Motel.  We hit traffic, so it was after 3:00 PM on Friday May 3, when we made it to the Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center.

Poor General Jackson

CV was concerned that I did not know exactly what was going on.  I was not worried.  I know how the National Parks Service does history, so I knew there would be something good.  Despite what CV thinks, my Civil War obsession is moderate.  I am not one of the elite group of "real timers" who is trying to be present at various key moments at the exact time they occurred 150 years ago.  We arrived in time to go on a brief walking tour led by Don Fontz to the spot where Stonewall Jackson was shot by friendly fire. We missed the exact time by about 20 hours, but Ranger Fontz's talk brought it alive for us.

The Ancestor Hunt

Mr. Fontz's talk was compelling and we were standing there 150 years and about 20 hours after it happened, but it was back in the visitor center where he really showed his historical mettle.  When I told him that I wanted to find where the 22nd New Jersey had been, he started consulting the day by day maps which showed no sign of the Third Brigade of the First Division of the First Corps.  Consulting some of the books they had there he was finally able to point me to a bend in the river at the extreme right of the Union line.  It was on private land.  CV and I took off and spent some time meandering around the narrow roads.  I finally had to satisfy myself with a picture at the very end of US Ford Road.  We were getting odd looks from somebody riding a lawn mower.  I did not hear a fife in the distance, but if I tell the story to my grandchildren maybe it will work its way in.

 Flying Through The Wilderness With The Dutchmen

I was really torn the next day.  The Park Service only allows a limited number of reenactors on their property so if I wanted to see masses of  "soldiers" marching, we had to go to the private event in Spotsylvania.  On the other hand, the Park Service had planned something very special. Park Historian Frank A. O'Reilly and Ranger Beth Parnicza were leading a hike to follow the 11th Corps as it was surprised and overwhelmed by Stonewall Jackson's daring flank march.  Arrangements had been made with the owners of private land in order to make the event possible, so this would be the first time that it was ever done.  Hard core real timers might be scornful of it being about forty hours late, but having a couple of hundred people tramping through privately owned dense forest on a Thursday night would probably not have been a good plan.

We solved the dilemma by going to the event in Spotsylvania in the morning and evening.  It was actually quite good.  We chatted with members of the Federal Generals Corps.  General Sickles was rather upset with the way the battle had gone, blaming General Hooker who did not seem to be around.  Joshua Chamberlain, still just a lieutenant colonel, sat in front of a tent with a sign warning about small pox.  The modern day Chamberlain is from West Virginia and probably needs to work on his Maine accent a little more.  I also chatted with Steward Henderson - President/Corporal of the 23rd United States Colored Troops.  His unit was a year early, but the real timers will just have to live with it. There was a lot more.  Even did a little shopping.

The Park Service event was very impressive.  Mr. O'Reilly gave us quite a speech about how rigorous it was going to be.  Two miles in and two miles out some of it through dense forest.  He probably exaggerated just a bit to be on the safe side.  We stopped periodically and he or Ms. Parnicza talked about what had happened on that very spot.  They showed us how we were out of sight of the road which added to the confusion.  Some of the hike was over land owned and farmed by the Hawkins family, both then and now.  Ms. Parnicza told us how the ladies, who had been hiding in the cellar, came out to cheer on Jackson's men.  Alexander Hawkins, home recovering from wounds, could not resist joining the attack as his old regiment went by.  She reminded us that every battlefield is somebody's home.  This video of the tour was not available when I originally posted on forbes.com

Go West

We finished the weekend by heading to the Shenandoah National Park.  The beautiful vistas on the hundred mile drive and the several hikes, one to a waterfall, were just the type of thing that CV appreciates.  I like them too, actually.  Oddly enough, two of the vistas had signs describing Jackson's valley campaign.  The national parks are a national treasure, as are the people who work in them including the volunteers, several of whom were schlepping sound equipment and probably waiting for some of us to drop on the flank attack hike.  We were glad to hear that none of them are being furloughed, but there have been cutbacks in the normal temporary help.  Given the strain that the sesquicentennial is putting on the system, that's a real shame.

Better To Be Lucky Than Good

My great-grandfather's division would not be so lucky in July when they were among the first to arrive to relieve Buford taking terrible casualties.

I have to wonder what it must have been like for him to read about it back in Bergen County.  He was mustered out along with the rest of the 22nd New Jersey on June 22, 1863.

You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.