Shoshone Forest Fire of August 21, 1937 Memorial (Blackwater Fire)

This memorial is to the Civilian Conservation Corps, United States Forest Service, and Bureau of Public Roads men who died in the Blackwater Fire of 1937.  The fire is the fourth deadliest forest fire in the U.S. history.

John E. Boltz Memorial, Washakie County Wyoming.

Memorial to Wyoming Department of Transportation engineer John E. Boltz, who was killed in a construction accident near where this memorial is located.

I-25 Wyoming Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home Highway

Just recently Interstate Highway 25 in Wyoming has been designated the Wyoming Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home Higway.  This has been marked by signs, and also here noted on the overhead highway sign.  On the date this photo was taken, a parade for Vietnam veterans was being held in nearby Casper.

Oregon Trail Marker, Green River Wyoming.

This is the memorial to pioneers in Green River Wyoming, which was one of the localities which a branch of the Oregon Trail went through.   This marker is on the grounds of the courthouse in Green River.

Old Courthouse, Cumberland County Pennsylvania

This is the Cumberland County Courthouse in Carlisle Pennsylvania, or rather its the Old Courthouse.

The courthouse was built in 1846 and figured in some fugitive slave cases prior to the Civil War.  The courthouse was hit by artillery fire from Stuart's troops prior to their withdrawing towards Gettysburg.

A monument of some sort stands on the courthouse grounds, but I did not get a chance to view it more closely.

Battery K, First Ohio Light Artillery, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg Pennsylvania

I missed this photograph when I posted the ones on Gettysburg the other day.  Taken from a moving car, I didn't realize that it was dedicated ton the First Ohio Light Artillery.  This inside the town of Gettysburg, which was generally inside of the Confederate lines during the battle, so I don't know the story behind this monument.

The monument incorporates a Jennifer saddle into the monument, an interesting embellishment in an area that has many interesting monuments.

Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Pennsylvania.

The photographs below are of the Gettysburg National Military Park.

I only recently saw the park, and as I was traveling for business, I did not have the time to tour it the way a tourist would.  A friend and colleague and I were, however, able to spend some time on our way back to Baltimore touring the park, for which we were both grateful.. Still, I was frankly hugely impressed.  Having only read of the battle, I didn't appreciate the battle's nature in some ways until I saw the ground, which I think is the norm for battlefields quite frankly.  You have to see them, to rally grasp them.

One thing that's difficult to appreciate, without having been there, is the vast scale of the battle. The battlefield is very large.  Monuments to individual units show how densely packed the battleground was with men.  A huge field, but heavily populated with troops on the field.

Culps Hill

Culps Hill was attacked, along with Cemetery Hill, on the second day of the battle, with Confederate forces attempting to take these two positions, which jutted out towards Gettysburg, and therefore were assaulted from two, nearly three, sides. The Union lines held.  The prior day they had not, and these positions were the ones they had fallen back upon.

Looking at Cemetery Hill from Culps Hill.

Southern Edge of the battleground

The following photographs depicts the southern edge of the battlefield, an area that Confederate forces would have crossed through, but which wasn't really involved in the battle.  Pennsylvania farm land, then as now.

Round Top and Little Round Top.

Two very prominent hills are found on the southern part of the field, Round Top and Little Round Top. They're virtually natural fortifications.

The Confederate forces, lacking cavalry as Gen. JEB Stuart was detached from the column raiding some distance from it and not always knowing where it was, was basically blind on the field and failed to realize that 10,000 Union troops occupied the hill, an intelligence and military failure that was to prove very costly to the Confederates.  On day two of the battle, the Confederate troops attempted to move past the base of the hills to attack Union positions from the south, but instead found themselves exposed to well position Union troops.

In learning this, the Confederate forces attempted to take both hills, with their efforts to take Little Round Top being particularly well known. The ground is so favorable to the defense that the effort, viewed today, would appear to be nearly insane.  It failed.

Stone wall on Round Top.

The center of the battlefield.

Between the hill positions of  Culps Hill and Cemetery Hill, and Round Top and Little Round Top, is a lower area which would have been gently rolling farmland.  Indeed, a picturesque farm exists right in the center of it, and did then.

It was this area that ultimately received the massive Confederate charge on the third day of battle, although it is sometimes forgotten that this also featured a renewed assault on Culps Hill.  Longstreet troops disengaged from their positions on the lower levels of Little Round Top at the time, that effort having been conclusively given up.  The enormous center assault, which had been anticipated by Union General Meade the day prior, famously featured Pickett's division, but it was only one of three Confederate divisions engaged in that part of the line.  It did advance the furthest, actually reaching the Union lines, before massive casualties put a halt to it, and the battle was over.

Monument to Pennsylvania's troops at the battlefield.

Monument to Minnesota's troops.

Monument noting the "high water mark" of the Confederacy, the northernmost main line attack of the war.

This grove of trees existed at the time of the battle, as did the farm in the left hand corner.

Confederate lines, A.P. Hill's artillery battery.

The objective on the third day of battle, as viewed from the Confederate lines.

Virginia memorial.