Into myth, blood & tears, 150 years-- Gettysburg

A mile away, across open fields into deadly fire, the men in gray stepped forward, into death and myth, 150 years ago

North Carolina looks at the objective.

You can't stand there and wonder how...
how men could have stepped into that open field, a mile away from a ridge where other brave Americans waited to kill you.
But they did, 12,500 of them, in butternut and gray, edged from the woods of Seminary Ridge at 2 p.m. 150 years ago. It's known as Pickett's charge, though Pettigrew's division also charged.
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after two deadly days of fighting, with stalemate, the Army of Northern Virginia attacking the Army of the Potomac.
The line they formed as about a mile long. On Cemetery Ridge, the Union soldiers gasped in admiration, and perhaps in fear at what they knew was coming, and in determination not to yield. 
Today, monuments to the Union units, identified by states, line the top of Cemetery Ridge. Where the Confederates massed a mile away on Seminary Ridge, monuments to those states stand.
As a child, I was taught the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was Lincoln's favorite song. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'd like to believe it. Even as a southerner, I think it captures the emotions of that day and time so well. So turn up your volume and listen to this first clip of the Presbyterian choirs singing the song at the recent Westminster church tornado music benefit.

They first stepped forward out of cover in the trees, lining up for the charge.

The monuments do not hint at the bravery, the horror, the sadness of the day. They do help tell the story, and testify to the importance of this battle in American history. If you've not been there, even with the traffic, there's a huge sense of quietness across the fields.
The star-crossed battle flag was not the national flag of the Confederacy, but created so it was easily identified. The real Stars and Bars looked too much like the Union flag from a distance. At least one shell torn flag, under which men died that day, is on display in the park visitor center and museum. Today, the flag has become almost a racist symbol, and I detest those fanatics who have made it so.

Then  they began walking, in butternut and gray. 

The farther they went, the more died

At first, the Federals gasped at the mile long sight, and then they waited as artillery took its toll.

They reached the wall, but that was all they could do.

This is as far as they got that day,
briefly breaching the rock wall, but in not enough force to carry the day. It was the Confederacy's "High Water Mark," and the day the Union survived.
I can't look at these photos, walk the fields, and think about this day without tears.
If you don't get it, I'm sorry, because this battle is part of our American blood.

Some go this close. One of every four killed here was from North Carolina

one hour after it started, almost 6,000 Confederates had been killed or wounded. Pickett lost 3,000 of his division alone. They straggled back to their lines, greeted by General Lee. It was his army's first defeat, and the charge was "Lee's mistake." Told to reform his division, Pickett told Lee, "General, I no longer have a divison."
Union general Meade also made a mistake, by allowing the Confederates to retreat back to Virginia beginning July 4, and prolonging the Civil war for another two bloody years. That's why for years, July 4 was a subdued holiday in the South. You couldn't escape the memories.

Fifty years later, survivors of Pickets charge marched over the ground again.

There are thousands at Gettysburg today, and reenactments as well. I'm thankful for those, because they can give us a sense of the humanity involved, in living color, rather than old black and white photos.
But reenactments aren't new. For years, veterans gathered there to remember, to honor, including these aging Southerners in 1913. For some great photo coverage of this year's re-enacments, check the photos from the Baltimore Sun. Battle photos

More than 6,000 casualties in less than an hour.

Lincoln was right. We can never forget what these men did here. The men marched into death and history, and myth, that continues today.
Pause at 2 p.m. Eastern time today, and in silence, remember, and salute. Here's another clip of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Graves of unknown Union soldiers at Gettysburg, killed 150 years ago in the first three days of July.

Lots more facts about the battle of Gettysburg

The art "month"--unfinished business

Intermission music at Reduxion during Tom Jones
(Turn up the volume, for this and the closing video)

My "art month" spanned more than just June, starting in late April. What astounds me is how much interesting things there are going on in this city and state. I took photos and videos of much of this, and

I meant to write about it all. I only managed to post about Frank's watercolor lessons--closest to the heart, I guess. I think I could have written full time on this month, but writing also wears me out.

The other lesson we keep talking about is how much we drive downtown. It's getting close to time to move.

Herb Ritts--Madonna

• Oklahoma City Museum of Art--Photorealism exhibit, late April
• Herb Ritts photography, Beauity and Celebrity, late May.
• Reduxion Theatre's Tom Jones, late May
• Frank Francese workshop, early June
• First Friday at Paseo, art  and music, early June
• Prix de West at Cowboy Hall of Fame, art and demonstrations and lectures,  mid-June
• Visited Woolaroc, Gilcrease, Cowboy Hall and Fred Jones Jr, Working on Western art story, all of June
• Faith Hope Love art and musical benefit fund raiser at Westminster Presbyterian Church, with opera, Amazing GGrace, bagpipes, Leona Mitchell, Thomas Studebaker, Jeffrey Wells and more, late June
• Painted, and wrote. 
• Missed poetry readings at Beans and Leaves, and Mark Zimmerman's night photography class exhibit opening downtown. 
• Following is a clip of Jeffrey Wells. I'm not a fan of opera, but I am now.

Gettysburg...the story told anew, animated

Thanks to the Civil War Trust, a 15 minute film tells the story of America's deadliest, and most heroic and important battle.
Remember, "the brave men, living and dead...."
Get some tissue.
Gettysburg recreated

Once you've been to Gettysburg...and virtually

Armies are marching again at Gettysburg, yesterday, today , and two tomorrows, 150 years later.

I think it is always inside you, as an American.

Thanks to the Civil War Trust for this Virtual tour.
Gettysburg 360

17 miles of wounded soldiers, oh the tears

The wagon train carrying the wounded stretched for 17 miles in the rain through southern Pennsylvania.

Somewhere in Pennsylvania

Along the way, some would die and be buried in unmarked graves. Behind them, more than 3,000 of their brothers were already known dead, and thousands more just "missing."
Gettysburg, 150 years ago, where about 50,000 Americans had been killed or wounded or were  missing in the first three days of July.
Today, there is the soldier's cemetery at Gettysburg, home to thousands killed that day, wearing blue, including 141 unknown. It would be almost seven years before people began trying to relocate the remains of Southern soldiers, who had to be buried in hasty shallow graves because of the rot and smell. Confederate cemeteries are few and filled with unmarked graves.

Confederate graves at Gettysburg

I can't fathom the courage and the horror both armies faced in that hot, humid July. I've been there, walked among the monuments, walked part of the way over open ground in the track of the awful "Picket's Charge."
But I do know, deep down inside, the emotions of the men, of the anguish and loss of parents and loved ones, many of whom never knew what happened to their children.
I know also that all across this country and Oklahoma, in cemetery after cemetery, you can find the distinctive gray-white tombstones that mark the final resting places of veterans, both blue and gray, who survived the war. I particularly can't imagine the feelings of those aging Confederate veterans who  lived out their lives, having lost a war they so passionately believe in.  
A year ago, I wrote more about the battle. Here's the link to those thoughts and photos. Gettysburg thoughts
And I know America is better for it all, as a nation, as a people, but oh the cost, oh the tears.

Lincoln said it best.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The cost of Gettysburg