THE CIVIL WAR REVISITED

A humble plank-wood farmhouse stands quietly now on Cemetery Hill, separated by time from the horrors of war that once engulfed i

t. It was the home of Abraham Brian, a free black man, and his family, who fled as the Confederate army approached in that steamy summer of 1863.

The farm was strategically located on a ridge in southern Pennsylvania overlooking much of the battlefield, and Union troops turned the house and barn into a division headquarters, trampling the crops and dismantling the fences to build fortifications.

When Brian returned to his 12-acre property after the battle, he filed a claim for damages with the federal government. He asked for $1,028; he got $15. Undaunted, he rebuilt his farm and prospered until his death in 1879.

His gray, weathered buildings remain landmarks in the greatest battle of the Civil War, and his story is just one of many glimpses into the life--and, often, the death--of the soldiers and civilians caught up in the three-day encounter in which more than 50,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or reported missing, making this the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.

Our nation was shaped by the events that took place here in the first three days of July 1863. But beyond the military tactics--the valiant but foolhardy charges and the sometimes blundering leadership on both sides--these personal stories, recounted in park brochures and battlefield interpretive signs, make a visit to Gettysburg National Military Park and the nearby town of Gettysburg compelling.

The park, established in 1895, covers nearly 6,000 acres of rolling fields cut by two high, parallel ridges. Scattered groves of trees trace the rocky crests, their leaves ablaze with color in October. In any season, the park yields lovely panoramas that almost make you forget its grim moment in history. Modern intrusions are slight, except for the more than 1,400 monuments and statues scattered across the landscape. About 1.7 million visitors arrive annually, most of them in summer when they can get a taste of the hot, humid weather the combatants faced. Spring and fall are quieter, and in winter you might almost have the park to yourself.

A trip into Civil War history is not particularly relaxing, as I discovered in April when I returned for a two-day visit. As a lifelong student of American history, I continue to find more to ponder with each trip. If you take time to learn about the players in the drama--the officers, their troops and the townsfolk--it is always fascinating. And the perspective one gains from knowing the details is often inspirational. I left in awe of the courage displayed by soldiers in both armies and with a firm resolve to face my own, lesser fears.

After major victories in the early years of the war, Gen. Robert E. Lee, then commander of the Southern forces, carried the war into the North. He was seeking to pressure the Union to call for peace and to spur Britain and other European nations to recognize the Confederate States of America as a separate government.

Initially, Southern forces, about 75,000 strong, seemed to have the upper hand in the Gettysburg battle, driving Union defenders out of town. But Union forces, which numbered about 88,000, claimed the high ground, and Confederate Gen. George Pickett’s 12,000-man charge up Cemetery Ridge on July 3 was strongly repulsed. The Confederates suffered disastrous casualties from which they never fully recovered, and Lee retreated to Virginia.

The failure of Pickett’s Charge was the war’s turning point. Lee’s army and the Confederacy were doomed, although they continued to fight for two more years until Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

I prepared myself for this visit by rereading “The Killer Angels,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Shaara. The book brings the battle alive with stirring vignettes of the leaders on both sides, many of whom were friends and classmates at West Point before the war. It also can be used as a guide to the landmarks of the battlefield. As a novelist, Shaara altered events slightly, but not enough to mislead his readers. A pamphlet sold at the visitor center, “A Killer Angels Companion” ($7.95), by historian D. Scott Hartwig, sets the record straight for purists.

You’ll get more background information on the battle at the visitor center on Cemetery Hill, which should be your first stop. Outdated and often crowded, it is scheduled to be torn down after a replacement is built on a less historic site in the park. (Planning is just getting underway.) Meanwhile, take time to catch a 30-minute Electric Map presentation in the auditorium, shown every 45 minutes. The map re-creates the battlefield landscape and its significant landmarks in miniature, and colored lights mark the movement of armies. You watch the lights representing Lee’s army move steadily toward Gettysburg as a larger cluster of Union lights races to block the way.

Also within the visitor center is the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War, where room after room is filled with exhibits detailing a soldier’s difficult, dangerous life. I was intrigued by the fates of two young Gettysburg men who volunteered for the Union army in 1861. David G. Meyers, a carriage painter, fought bravely until 1864, when he was captured and died, along with 12,000 others, in the notorious Andersonville prison in Georgia. The other, Daniel P. Riegle, a farm laborer, won the Medal of Honor (displayed at the museum) after capturing a Confederate flag in 1864 at the Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia. He lived to witness Lee’s surrender and to return home to Gettysburg.

In a separate building on Cemetery Hill is the Gettysburg Cyclorama, a colossal circular painting of Pickett’s Charge. You stand beneath the painting, which surrounds you, while a sound and light program propels you seemingly into the fury of the fighting. I was wowed by the 20-minute presentation. More than 10,000 individual figures are represented on the canvas--about half the number who actually fought in the charge--with countless horses, cannons and wagons. (Before movies, cycloramas were considered exciting entertainment, and now I can understand why.)

Make sure you stop at the National Cemetery just outside the visitor center, where President Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863, in dedication ceremonies. A total of 3,555 Union soldiers who were killed or mortally wounded at Gettysburg are buried here; their bodies were removed from temporary battlefield graves. More than 900 were never identified, and their final graves are marked with small white stones carrying only a number. (The Confederate dead remained buried on the battlefield until their bodies were moved to Southern cemeteries.)

The controversial National Tower, a privately operated observation deck that soared overhead and, some believed, marred the view, was torn down on July 3, the anniversary of the battle.

At this point, consider yourself ready to take the park’s 18-mile auto tour on your own or with a licensed guide driving your car. (If you call in advance, some guides will bicycle part of the route with you. And at least one Gettysburg outfitter organizes horseback tours of the park. See Guidebook for details.) I opted to hire a guide ($35 for two hours), one of about 120 licensed by the park.

H igh on Cemetery Ridge rises a huge pink granite boulder atop a small pedestal. It is perhaps the most curious of the scores of monuments scattered across the Gettysburg Battlefield--and the most poignant.

“It was placed there in 1880, and it honors soldiers from Roxbury, Mass.,” said Kavin Coughenour, the guide I hired. “The people of Roxbury chose it because those men who died here in the battle used to play on that rock as boys.”

Without a guide, I doubt I would have spotted the boulder on my own, despite having driven the Gettysburg Battlefield auto tour several times. Laid out chronologically, the auto tour, either self-driven or guided, takes in major battle landmarks, including Devil’s Den (a rocky slope), the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, the Angle and the High Water Mark.

But first we drove through the town of Gettysburg, which had about 2,400 residents in 1863 (about 7,000 today). “Look for the wall plaques on the houses,” Coughenour said, explaining that they point out about 160 structures that date to the battle.

A moment later we passed the bullet-nicked Jennie Wade House in the heart of town, home (and now a museum) of the only Gettysburg civilian killed in the battle. A stray bullet hit her while she worked in her kitchen.

The Schriver House, occupied during the battle by Confederate sharpshooters, is a museum dedicated to telling the civilian side of the battle. Days after the fighting was over, townsfolk were still plagued by the smell of 5,000 horses killed in the battle. They spread peppermint oil on their lips to counteract the odor.

The Wills House on Lincoln Square, where President Lincoln stayed the night before delivering the Gettysburg Address, is also a museum. Outside is a statue of Lincoln in somber attire appearing to help a visiting tourist, who is casually dressed in colorful sweater and cords. “We call it the Perry Como statue,” the guide said, “because that’s who the tourist looks like.”

On the second and third days of the battle, the two armies faced each other on parallel ridges, separated only by a mile-wide valley of cropland and orchards. On Seminary Ridge, the Confederate line, an equestrian statue of Lee surveys the battlefield. Standing at its base, I got an eerie appreciation of how little distance separated the combatants. From this vantage, I could easily spot the facing statue of Gen. George G. Meade, the Union commander astride his horse on Cemetery Ridge.

As we toured, Coughenour noted that most of the battlefield’s monuments are dedicated to units of the Union army, erected by state or community associations to honor the battle’s participants. One of the newest atop Seminary Ridge depicts Gen. James Longstreet, Lee’s second in command, reining in his charging horse. Interestingly, the statue, erected in 1998, has no pedestal. You see rider and mount as though they had just emerged from the nearby woods.

Little Round Top, a rocky hill at the southern end of the Union line, is of special interest to readers of “The Killer Angels.” It is here that Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a rhetoric professor from Maine who is one of the novel’s real-life heroes, leads his regiment to glory. Ordered to defend the Union’s far left flank, Chamberlain’s regiment came under heavy assault and was running low on ammunition. Rather than withdraw, Chamberlain ordered a bayonet attack, surprising the weary Confederates who almost surrounded him and sending them into disorderly retreat. You can pick your way over the rough ground that he and his men defended. By war’s end, Chamberlain had been promoted to general. He later was awarded the Medal of Honor and was elected governor of Maine four times.

On Day 3, Lee ordered an assault on the center of the Union line. This was Pickett’s Charge, although other Confederate units were engaged. After a two-hour supporting cannonade, Pickett’s men advanced across the slender valley separating Seminary and Cemetery ridges. A Union force of 7,000 posted around the Copse of Trees (a wispy grove), the Angle and the Brian Barn drove them back. In one hour the Confederates suffered 5,000 casualties. The next day, Lee began his retreat to Virginia.

The Copse of Trees, the focal point of the charge, symbolizes the crest of Confederate strength. It was at the copse that Union artillery Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing, 22, a West Point graduate, was hit by cannon fire from Seminary Ridge. Though severely wounded, he managed to fire the last of the six guns that survived the barrage as the Confederates charged. Despite his efforts, his battery was briefly overrun, and he was shot and killed.

As Coughenour concluded our tour, I tried to imagine myself a Union infantry or artillery soldier shielded by a rock fence as I watched the Confederate advance. Before me would have stretched a mile-long battle line, 12,000 enemy soldiers in perfect alignment, their battle flags flying, headed my way across open fields in the face of devastating fire.

Only when you see the landscape from the perspective of the foot soldier can you begin to sense the terror they must have felt as their world exploded around them. For whatever cause individuals fought, men on both sides displayed amazing courage. Their stories, and those of the civilians caught in the maelstrom, draw me back to Gettysburg Battlefield again and again.

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GUIDEBOOK

Savoring the History of Gettysburg, Park and Town

Getting there: Gettysburg National Military Park is about 110 miles west of Philadelphia, 50 miles north of Baltimore and 65 miles north of Washington, D.C. From LAX to Philadelphia, nonstop service is available on United and US Airways, and direct service is offered on America West. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $298. (For air fares from LAX to Washington, see the Washington, D.C., Guidebook on Page L12.)

Admission to the park is free.

Where to stay: On this visit, I checked into the Gaslight Inn, 33 E. Middle St.; telephone (717) 337-9100, Internet https://www.thegaslightinn.com. This charming, nine-room B&B; on a quiet street just off Lincoln Square has been recently renovated and decorated in soothing pastels. Doubles with full breakfast begin at $100.

I also recommend these inns, which reflect the 19th century look of the town: Doubleday Inn, 104 Doubleday Ave.; tel. (717) 334-9119, fax (717) 334-7907, Internet https://www.bbonline.com/pa/doubleday/index.html, which is on the battlefield; doubles start at $89. The Brick House Inn, 452 Baltimore St.; tel. (717) 338-9337 or (800) 864-3464, fax (717) 338- 9265, Internet https://www.brickhouseinn.com; doubles begin at $90. Baltimore Street B&B;, 449 Baltimore St.; tel. (717) 334-2454 or (888) 667-8266; doubles begin at $100 until the end of November. James Gettys Hotel, 27 Chambersburg St.; tel. (717) 337-1334, fax (717) 334-2103, Internet https://www.jamesgettyshotel.com; rooms at the all-suite hotel begin at $125.

Family-friendly lodging options include Quality Inn Gettysburg Motor Lodge, 380 Steinwehr Ave.; tel./fax (717) 334-1103, Internet https://www.qualityinn.com; doubles begin at $85. Holiday Inn Battlefield, 516 Baltimore St.; tel. (717) 334-6211, fax (717) 334-7183, Internet https://www.basshotels.com/holidayinn; doubles begin at $98. Best Western Gettysburg Hotel, 1 Lincoln Square; tel. (717) 337-2000, fax (717) 337-2075, Internet https://www.gettysburg-hotel.com; doubles begin at $125.

Where to eat: Numerous fast-food chains are represented in Gettysburg, and many cafes and restaurants can be found on or adjacent to Lincoln Square in the heart of town. For historic atmosphere, dine at the Dobbin House Tavern, 89 Steinwehr Ave., local tel. 334-2100, which occupies a stone house built in 1776. No big surprises on the menu, but the food is well prepared. I ordered broiled pork tenderloin in a raspberry sauce for $16; entrees range from $15 to $32. For family dining in a Victorian setting, try the Gingerbread Man, 217 Steinwehr Ave., tel. 334-1100; entrees range from $9 to $19.

Touring the battlefield: Licensed guides for the 18-mile auto tour can be hired at the Gettysburg Battlefield on a first-come, first-served basis at $35 for two hours for up to five people. The visitor center opens at 8 a.m. Arrive early to ensure you’ll get a guide, especially in the summer and on spring and fall weekends.

For a guide who will bicycle with you, call Eastern National, (877) 438-8929. Bicycle rentals are available from Blazing Saddles, 17 Chambersburg St.; tel. (717) 337-0700, fax (717) 338-9677, Internet https://www.blazingsaddles.com. Rentals begin at $5 an hour. Two-hour tours of the battlefield on horseback are offered by National Riding Stables, 610 Taneytown Road; tel. (717) 334-1288, fax (717) 334-0855, Internet https://www.artilleryridge.com. Reservations should be made well in advance. Rates begin at $45 for the two-hour ride; no one younger than 8 is allowed.

For more information: For the Gettysburg area, Gettysburg Convention & Visitors Bureau, 35 Carlisle St., Gettysburg, PA 17325; tel. (717) 334-6274, fax (717) 334-1166, Internet https://www.gettysburg.com. For Gettysburg National Military Park, tel. (717) 334-1124, Internet https://www.nps.gov/gett. For Gettysburg National Cemetery, Internet https://www.nps.gov/ getc.

Also, the Pennsylvania Center for Travel, Tourism and Film Promotion, 404 Forum Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120; tel. (800) VISIT-PA (847-4872), fax (717) 787-0687, Internet https://www.state.pa.us.