Gettysburg Off the Beaten Path—Revamp
As the 150th anniversary events of the Civil War draw to a close, I have a feeling that many of our readers will be jonesing for a little battlefielding. With this in mind, I thought that I would revamp my old Gettysburg Off the Beaten Path series.
Over the years I have amassed quite a bit of really useless knowledge about Gettysburg as I prepared for and passed the guide test. I figured I would put some of my useless knowledge and research to work for the benefit of our readers. I have taken many tour groups, colleagues, and friends to some of Gettysburg’s out of the way places. There are seemingly hundreds of out of the way places that you can discovery linked to the campaign, and I could honestly write a post a day for a year about all of the out of the way places on and off the Gettysburg Battlefield. This series though, consists of those areas that the groups I led to loved the most. I hope that you will enjoy them as well. Keep in mind just because these areas are out of the way, does not mean that they are unimportant to battle of campaign as a whole.
For all of the reader’s information: This is NOT meant to be a comprehensive or chronological tour of the battle, or battlefield; if you would like one of those I suggest The Complete Gettysburg Guide: Walking and Driving Tours of the Battlefield, Town, Cemeteries Field Hospital Sites and other Topics of Historical Interest by: J. David Petruzzi and Steven Stanley, or A Field Guide to Gettysburg: Experiencing the Battlefield through Its History, Places, and People by: Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler . If you are looking for a day by day approach, you could start with Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1st, 1863 by: Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis.
All directions in the posts will start at the town square (or Diamond as it was called by the locals), in downtown Gettysburg. The reason for this is simple; the roundabout in the square will take you in all directions (north, south, east, and west).
I will provide aerial overviews for the sites to give you a better understanding of the location. I will also note if sites are on private or public land, if areas prone to swamp like conditions, if you are likely to run into snakes, as well as noting any difficulty in traversing the terrain in the area.
Many thanks, Kris!! Your timing is perfect. We’ve rented a farm north of town for a family gathering in mid August. I have ‘Fight Like the Devil’ at hand thanks to you and Chris Mackowski and will study it. My wife and I visit Gburg at least twice a year and our niece attends Gburg College (school nickname ‘the Bullets’, not exactly PC!!). Looking forward to your ECW posts!!
John,
Thank you for the kind words and purchasing ‘Fight Like the Devil.’ We hope that you find it, and this series, useful. We are currently working on our day two books that continue the Gettysburg saga. in the next few weeks I will have new sites that I did not touch on in the original series, while updating all of the old posts as well. I hope you will enjoy and find them useful!
Thanks for these postings. This weekend I have surfeited on the FB and YT content supplied by ABT, GNMP, ACHS, and The History Traveler!