There were TONS of Sox fans around. It was Massachusetts school vacation week, the Sox played in Baltimore on Wednesday and Thursday, and they just won the World Series! Everywhere we went, there were lots of folks in Sox gear. Here's Rob Patterson of North Carolina via the South Shore in the back of the Capitol.
The first stop of the day was the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum out at Dulles Intl Airport. It was basically a hanger full of planes and space vehicles. Cool if you are into that stuff.
It was raining, so we scraped our plan to go to Arlington and went to our hotel in downtown Washington, the JW Marriott. Its about 2 blocks from the White House.
The Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial in the background. Notice the discoloration at about the one-third point of the monument. That is there because the monument was partially built, then the funding ran out and didn't start up again for another 20 years.
The first stop on our car tour was to see Cavalry officer General John Buford who was the first Union officer on the scene of the coming battle. He recognized the significance of the terrain and made a stand to the North of the town.
A tribute to General Reynolds. Considered by many the best Union general. He quickly led his division to enforce Buford's position which was critical to the Union holding the high ground on the first day of the battle.
The view from the tower with Cemetery Ridge on the left, Litte Round Top with all the rocks to the right of center, and Big Round Top the big hill on the far right.
Jack and I saluting one of the most brilliant generals in the war, James Longstreet. This is the area from where Longstreet's corps launhced its attack to Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and the peach orchard on the second day of the battle.
Here is the view from Little Round Top which was the scene of some the deadliest fighting this country has ever seen. The Confederates under Longstreet (JB Hood's Division) tried to take this hill many times in the late afternoon of day 2 of the battle. Hood and Longstreet wanted to go around the hill because the Union flank was open, but Lee ordered them to attack straight ahead up this hill. Just totally insane. Look how steep, uneven, and rocky it is. Hood later cliamed it was "the worst damn ground" he ever saw. You can also see the rock formation named Devil's Den in the upper left hand part of the picture.
This monument signifies the right end of the line of the 20th Maine regiment. They were the end of the line for the Union Army and were attacked repeatedly by Hood. They put up a valiant fight and after running out of ammunition and in the end did an insane bayonet charge down the hill led by Laurence Joshua Chamberlin. One of the most infamous moments in the war. The Union flank held and they avoided what could have been a catastrophic defeat.
A couple of pictures from below Little Round Top. It is hard to believe they thought that could take this hill by running lines of soliders up there. Look at that!
There were lots of fences all over the battlefield as this was farm land. They proved to be a problem in some of the confederate attacks because it would slow the soldiers down and make them susceptible to artillery fire.
Cemetery Ridge is where Pickett's Charge was headed to on day three of the battle. The Confederate soldiers had to walk over a mile across an open field in a shower of artillery fire to try to take the Union center on this ridge. The Union soldiers also had a low wall to hide behind as they were firing on the Confederates. The Confederates reached the wall but were never reallly able to break it and Pickett lost more than half his division in the attack. The South was never the same after that defeat. It was another utterly insane attack.
