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Some of the 1300
monuments |
You likely think the Civil War has been over for many years. You would be wrong. The War is still being fought today. There are over 1300 monuments on the battlefield at Gettysburg, and people are still arguing about who deserves to be recognized and where their monument should be placed. Some of the arguments have gone as far as the Supreme Court.
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Confederate monument
placed where their fight
began |
In 1863 Robert E Lee was winning battles all over the south. He believed that if he could only take the war to the North, he could end it. He believed that if the Northern war weary population got a taste of battle, they would sue for peace. He brought his army North along the Appalachian Mountains hoping to draw the North into battle. Mostly by happenstance the two armies met at Gettysburg. On the first day of July 1863, Lee’s Army pushed the North into defensive positions along Cemetery Ridge. For the next three day, with multiple attempts, they were unable to break Union
lines. On several occasions Lee’s forces were within minutes of taking either Little Round Top or Cemetery Hill and defeating the North, but on each occasion they fell short. Lee retreated South, and most historians
consider his failure at Gettysburg to be the turning point in the war. There is a grove of trees on the battlefield that represent the “High Water” mark for the South. It is the point to which approximately 500 out of 14,000 men advanced during Pickets Charge. It is the point to which Lee moved before his retreat.
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Memorial to Virginia
and General Lee |
The first day we visited the battlefield was beautiful and warm. It just didn’t seem to fit what had happened historically. It remains difficult to imagine the carnage that occurred. 160,000 men fought over the three days. 51,000 were killed, wounded or captured. The numbers of dead or wounded for the entire Civil war was recently revised to 750,000. The total American dead for WWII was 405,399. Today we are still arguing over the principle issue of the war. Shall we have a strong federal government or a weaker federal government and stronger state rights. http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg.html
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Picketts Charge....day 3 and end of Battle of Gettysburg
Depiction from the Diorama done in 1935 |
For a change of venue, we headed about an hour north to Hershey Pa. where we toured Hershey Chocolate World. When we left at the end of the day, we felt as if we had been trick or treating...every tour we took, ended with being given a candy bar.
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| Tasting class |
We did learn a number of interesting things. First, we went through a 'Tasting Class' where we learned the subtle differences between milk chocolate, dark chocolate and artisan chocolates. Much like tasting wine, you smell it, look at it, break it, let a small bite melt on your tongue and then identify the different flavor notes you experienced. Buttery, grainy, fruity, Dairy, earthy, floral, coffee, bitter, etc.
We also learned how chocolate beans grow and are harvested. The beans are the center of a pod that grows on the trunk of the Cocoa tree, and once harvested are dried and roasted much like coffee beans. Cocoa tree roots are very shallow, and will take on the flavor of other plants growing around them which is how they might get a floral or fruity taste. Like wine making, they blend cocoa beans from different areas together to create a specific flavor of for their product.
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Hershey and one of his
'boys' |
The most amazing item we learned on the tour we took of the town of Hershey, was of the generous philanthropic deeds of Milton Hershey and his wife Catherine. Because they could not have children, Catherine wanted to build a school for orphaned children. Today, the school continues to take in children, both boys and girls who come from impoverished families. The kids live in houses supervised by a married couple who care for them. All of their financial needs are seen to by the Hershey Trust, and if they continue onto college, they are given a substantial amount of money towards finishing their education. The majority of children age 4 through 16 come from Pennsylvania, and especially the local surrounding counties of Hershey.
Hershey was generous to everyone who worked for him. In the beginning, he built homes for
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| Light Standard in Hershey |
his workers and sold them for what it cost to build. He owned the utility companies and residents of Hershey paid substantially less than surrounding cities, and during the depression of the 1930's he created jobs and put people to work. An amazing man! And know that every time you purchase a Hershey product, part of that cost goes back to the Milton Hershey School for orphaned children.
The first day we visited the battlefield was beautiful and warm. It just didn’t seem to fit what had happened historically. It remains difficult to imagine the carnage that occurred. 160,000 men fought over the three days. 51,000 were killed, wounded or captured. The numbers of dead or wounded for the entire Civil war was recently revised to 750,000. The total American dead for WWII was 405,399. Today we are still arguing over the principle issue of the war. Shall we have a strong federal government or a weaker federal government and stronger state rights. http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg.html
We also learned how chocolate beans grow and are harvested. The beans are the center of a pod that grows on the trunk of the Cocoa tree, and once harvested are dried and roasted much like coffee beans. Cocoa tree roots are very shallow, and will take on the flavor of other plants growing around them which is how they might get a floral or fruity taste. Like wine making, they blend cocoa beans from different areas together to create a specific flavor of for their product.
