Dedicating bloodsoaked sod

 

This is the pew Lincoln sat in while attending a service on the evening after the address. It is also the church Ike attended when he lived in Gettysburg. There is a plaque showing where Vice President Nixon sat while visiting his former boss. There is something odd about Nixon having sat just feet from where Lincoln did. Two years later, I'm still wrapping my brain around it.

This is the Will's House. Its where Lincoln stayed while in Gettysburg.

The statue of "War" on the Soldier's National Monument at Gettysburg National Cemetery

"History" on the Soldier's National Monument. The other corner statues are "Peace" and "Plenty".

The first two unmarked graves. They are within paces of where Lincoln geve his 'dedication'. The named grave stones are connected together, forming semi-circles around the  Soldier's National Memorial. There are two types of unmarked graves. Some are individual, like the ones above. There are, however, mass grave makers which read 'unknown' and the number of bodies. Several of them had penny's all over them. (Lincoln side up.)




"We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place." One of the things which hits the kids is that this dedication is not just in a pretty garden like most cemeteries. This dedication is on actual site of the battle. Men would have fought and died for the very ground Lincoln and his listeners would have stood on. This battle marker is feet from where Lincoln delivered the address and the center of controvery then and now about Lee's command to Ewell about taking the hill 'if at all practicable.' That hill (some argue it was Culp' Hill to the east) was where the national cemtery will be located.

In addition to meeting our Ford's Theater teaching artist today (YEAH JOJO!), we have been unpacking the Gettysburg Address. YEsterday we took a look at the first sentence. Today we looked at the section starting, "Now, we are engaged in a great civil war..." to "...it is altogether fitting and proper we should do this." Tomorrow we will tackle the rest. Their insights on the speech have been cool. They've noticed that he frames the speech in past present and future. They've noticed that the words dedication and nation are repeated (three times so far). One even noticed that there are no proper nouns in the piece. They are also wrestling with writing the sections in either a tweet or a haiku.
I have blathered on about how much I love the Gettysburg Address on this blog before. I am inspired even teaching it. I love it when they get 'stirred' by it as well!

In honor of all things Gettysburg I wanted to post a couple websites.

This one gives a nice analysis of the speech.

This one is Ford's Theater. I loves me my Ford's Theater.

The photos on this post are mine, except for the one of the interior of the Ford's Theater box. A buddy, James, scored that one and forwarded it to me. He cajoled the Ford's Theater folks until they opened the box for him.