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GETTYSBURG

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Times Staff Writer

My father was an expert on the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest clash of the Civil War. Lord knows why I thought this, except that over the years he took every friend and relative on at least one personally narrated tour of the Pennsylvania battlefield, a half-hour drive from my Maryland hometown. By the time I was in high school, I could recite a dramatic account of the events that culminated in Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863.


FOR THE RECORD:
Gettysburg casualties: A July 3 Travel section article on the Civil War battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania incorrectly reported that 23,000 Union troops and more than 20,000 Confederate troops were killed. Those figures represent casualties, not just deaths.


So when I found myself in Maryland with my two young children in tow, a visit to Gettysburg seemed preordained. At 7, Danny knows the basics of the Civil War. He is mightily impressed with Abraham Lincoln, and anyplace with cannons and something called Devil’s Den has a lot going for it from a kid’s standpoint. I figured if he and Fiona, 5, couldn’t quite grasp the importance of the events that occurred on the 6,000 acres of the Gettysburg National Military Park, they could run around, climb cannons and have swordfights, just as my brother and I did when we were growing up.

I feared that Gettysburg would have been tarted up since I last visited, but it seemed unchanged. The town is touristy but not tacky; there are charming antiques and curio shops, the inevitable wax museum and placards advertising an assortment of ghost tours. But it is still just a small Pennsylvania town, with brick and clapboard homes lining the main streets and farms scattered along the outskirts. When we visited, the trees were still bare, but the forsythias were in bloom, great sweeping, sunny swaths of it everywhere you looked.

The National Park Service is busy cutting down trees (many of which they planted) to make the landscape truer to that of the battle days. And there were a few big motel chains that I didn’t remember being there, but the town of 7,500 remains quiet and low-tech.

The visitors’ center is just as it was when I was young: small and dim with musty displays of uniforms and cannonballs, muskets and stretchers. Ground has been broken for a new museum, but it isn’t scheduled to open until 2007.

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The center houses the famous Electric Map, a half-hour “show” that explains the movements of Confederate and Union troops during the three summer days that marked the turning point of the war. The kids were very excited at the prospect and quite disappointed by the reality, which is a topographic map on which little colored bulbs light up in time with the narration. “Mom,” said Danny in a loud, disgusted whisper, “I thought there was going to be a battle.”

Children of the computer graphics generation, my kids are too young to appreciate the kitsch value of the map, which was primitive even when I was young. (Danny did, however, remember the fishhook configuration of Union troops, so it wasn’t a complete loss.)

Under a guide’s command

I debated how best to tour the battlefields. One of the great regrets of my life is that I never videotaped my father’s Gettysburg tour, and I must admit that after years of nonuse, my own narrative has grown sketchy. If we had visited during the summer — we were there in the spring — there would have been many ranger-led walks and battlefield tours from which to choose. But I wasn’t sure a group tour was the right thing for us anyway: I wanted the kids to be able to run around and ask questions and, most important, not bother anyone.

A friend had told me I could hire a guide to travel with us in our car. So I approached the man at the information counter and pointed to my children, catching Fiona mid-cartwheel. “These are my children,” I said, trying not to sound apologetic. “Would a guide be a good way to see the battlefield?”

Yes, he assured me. The guide would be happy to tailor the experience to meet the needs of the children. Yes, we could concentrate on Little Round Top and Devil’s Den. Yes, there would be plenty of running-around time. So having signed up for a half-hour hence, we ran out, grabbed some lunch and a couple of plastic swords for old times’ sake and returned to meet our guide.

I had vaguely hoped for someone a bit collegiate, easy with kids and a bit jokey. Instead, we watched as Suzanne Harbach approached.

About 5 feet tall, with ramrod posture, a military blue coat and a cap perched on her white hair, she could not have been more no-nonsense.

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Danny, who is usually fairly shy and therefore polite with adults, took one look and asked her, in solemn tones of pure curiosity: “How old are you?”

Harbach was not amused. Mortified, I whispered to him that although you may ask another child how old he is, it is impolite to ask a grown-up. “I know,” he whispered back, “but how old is she?”

Let’s just say that she was present, as a college student, for the dedication of the Eternal Flame. In 1938.

Because I was driving a rental car, Harbach informed me in rat-a-tat tones, she could not do the driving. Inside the car, she gave me a brief outline of the tour and expressed a preference for having the windows rolled up and the air conditioning on because it cut down on noise.

As she commenced her swiftly intoned and very impressive tour, I glanced back at my children imploringly, every parental nerve exposed and throbbing. They stared back, clearly impressed by the authority now planted in our little Geo.

At the first stop, Harbach informed the children that they would be allowed to visit the cannons “but not until you listen to what I have to say because I want you to understand. And leave those swords in the car.”

Getting out, I pulled the kids aside. “This lady is very smart and has a lot of rules,” I hissed. “And we are going to follow them and be polite. I want ‘Yes, ma’ams’ and ‘No, ma’ams.’ ”

Even Fiona nodded; she knew her match when she saw it.

The tour lasted two hours and what we didn’t learn about the period surrounding the high-water mark of the Confederacy isn’t worth knowing.

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In hindsight, I think I should have been more insistent about needing a guide who would talk on a child’s level. Neither Danny nor Fiona knew what “skirmish” meant or “observe” or “cavalry” for that matter, and so I had to keep interrupting Harbach to give the kids a more age-appropriate explanation of what was being said. I don’t think she appreciated being interrupted.

I would also have forgone some of the information for a bit more running-around time, but frankly, I was too intimidated to suggest it.

Riding herd

On the other hand, I think the kids appreciated that Harbach didn’t talk down to them, and she did make a few modifications to her itinerary. The one time they began acting up in the back seat, she immediately told me to pull over. “Get out of the car,” she said, and believe me, we obeyed. But instead of thrashing us with switches as I had feared, she showed the children a monument with a bronze statue of a puppy on it.

A farmer had given a New York unit a puppy named Sally during the battle; Sally survived Gettysburg and was killed only a few months before the end of the war.

Fiona still talks about Sally.

And Harbach permanently endeared herself to Danny by teaching him how to differentiate between real cannons and replicas (the real ones have serial numbers carved into their mouths). As for me, I have never seen my children behave better in my life. Now I know what’s possible. And that’s worth $40 right there.

After the tour, we returned to Little Round Top and Devil’s Den for a little noneducational fun. Watching my children pretend to shoot from the top of the monument’s tower and climb the foot-slicked boulders of the den, I was struck by the relativity of memory.

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In my mind, the rocks were huge, the distance between the two areas, which became known during the battle as the Valley of Death, enormous. I remember, as a child, thinking that it was clear something huge and tragic had occurred here. Among the placid Pennsylvania fields, this area of steep hills and rocks looked as if God himself had churned it up in anger.

In reality, it is a small place for so much death. I, and my children, have seen topography much more startling — Joshua Tree and the Grand Canyon, New Mexico’s City of Rocks and White Sands. Compared to them, Devil’s Den, and Gettysburg itself, seems strangely quaint. But 23,000 Union troops lost their lives here; Confederate losses were upward of 20,000.

Tough to explain

It’s hard to reconcile the fascination of places like this with the horror of what actually happened, harder still to explain it to a child. Beyond the cannons and the monuments with the flags and the wreaths and the horse statues — four feet down, the rider survived the battle; one foot up, he was wounded; two feet up, he died — there are the questions: Why are we here? What are we looking at? A place unlike any other in this country, where men changed history in three hot, bloody days.

I reminded my children of what we heard during the narrative of the Electric Map, of the two battalions of Minnesotans that, flanked by Confederate forces, held up just long enough. Of Robert E. Lee’s fateful decision to march 12,000 soldiers across that field to their doom. Those were people, I tell my children, just like us. The decisions they made and what they did changed this country.

“It must have been really loud, huh, Mama,” Danny said as we stared at the hill where so many died. The sun was settling behind the tree line, and the breeze was chilly. There was no one else around us, no sound but the dry flap of a crow’s wing overhead. “Yes,” I said, “it must have been.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

At play on the fields of battle

GETTING THERE

From LAX to Baltimore-Washington International, nonstop flights are available on Southwest; connecting flights (stop, change of plane) are available on AirTran, America West, American, Continental, Delta, Frontier, Northwest and United. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $198.

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From LAX to Washington Dulles International, nonstop flights are available on American and United; connecting flights are available on Continental, Delta, Northwest and US Airways. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $218.

From LAX to Washington National, nonstop flights are available on Alaska Airlines; direct flights (stop, no change of plane) on Midwest Express; connecting flights on AirTran, America West, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United. Restricted fares begin at $218.

WHERE TO STAY:

Rates below do not reflect a 9% tax.

The Farnsworth House Inn, 401 Baltimore St.; (717) 334-8838, https://www.farnsworthhouseinn.com . Victorian B&B, decorated with 19th century antiques, has 10 themed rooms, some said to be haunted. Within walking distance of battlefield attractions. Doubles from $125. Civil War-period dining in either the main dining room, tavern or outdoor garden. Main courses from $14.95.

James Gettys Hotel, 27 Chambersburg St.; (888) 900-5275, https://www.jamesgettyshotel.com . Historic building, dating to 1804, is just off the square in downtown Gettysburg. Each of the hotel’s 11 suites contains a kitchenette with stove, microwave and refrigerator. Doubles from $135.

Holiday Inn Battlefield, 516 Baltimore St.; (717) 334-6211, https://www.holiday-inn.com/get-battlefld . Modern, full-service hotel with fitness room and outdoor pool. Across the street from the Soldiers National Cemetery, where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Doubles from $118.

WHERE TO EAT:

Dobbin House Tavern, 89 Steinwehr Ave.; (717) 334-2100, https://www.dobbinhouse.com . Elegant dining with Colonial flair in Gettysburg’s oldest home, built in 1776. Six formal, candlelighted dining rooms feature traditional American cuisine, homemade breads and desserts. Casual dining in the downstairs Springhouse Tavern. Main courses from $16.50.

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The Pub & Restaurant, 20-22 Lincoln Square; (717) 334-7100, https://www.the-pub.com . Casual, family dining with a menu so large it’s spiral-bound. Pizza, nachos, salads, pasta, pita sandwiches and no fewer than nine varieties of grilled chicken-breast sandwiches. Main courses from $8.50.

TO LEARN MORE:

Pennsylvania Center for Travel, Tourism and Film Production, (800) 847-4872, https://www.visitpa.com .

Gettysburg National Military Park, (717) 334-1124, https://www.nps.gov/gett .

— Bruce Friedland

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