- Joined
- Dec 28, 2008
- Location
- Pennsylvania
After all the times I've been to the battlefield over the years, spending hours walking the fields and woods and trails, every now and then I find something I didn't know about, even in places I'm very familiar with.
I walked down to the Devil's Kitchen from the BRT parking lot the other day. I think the place is really sort of creepy-cool, especially since I've never run into anyone else there when I am.
Expired Image Removed
But this time, as I walked through the big rocks above, and headed down the path that would take me down to Devil's Den, I happened to see something on the back of the Devil's Kitchen rocks that I had missed the dozen times I'd been there before: evidence that at least some of the rocks had been used as a quarry, perhaps for flank markers, somewhere along the line.
Expired Image Removed
If you look at the rock at the bottom middle, you can see two marks that are evidence of the "feathers" used to split the rocks. And if you look at the rock behind that rock in the picture below, you can see marks of the same feathering on the left edge.
Expired Image Removed
Go figure! It would stand to reason that big rocks such as those at Devil's Kitchen would make good flank markers, but I had never seen those before. Maybe I just happened to look at it the right way this time.
It's those small details that are continually new to me that make me want to return to Gettysburg again and again, whether details about the men who fought there, the battlefield park's creation, or the things in the town that are a part of the whole story of Gettysburg.
I walked down to the Devil's Kitchen from the BRT parking lot the other day. I think the place is really sort of creepy-cool, especially since I've never run into anyone else there when I am.
Expired Image Removed
But this time, as I walked through the big rocks above, and headed down the path that would take me down to Devil's Den, I happened to see something on the back of the Devil's Kitchen rocks that I had missed the dozen times I'd been there before: evidence that at least some of the rocks had been used as a quarry, perhaps for flank markers, somewhere along the line.
Expired Image Removed
If you look at the rock at the bottom middle, you can see two marks that are evidence of the "feathers" used to split the rocks. And if you look at the rock behind that rock in the picture below, you can see marks of the same feathering on the left edge.
Expired Image Removed
Go figure! It would stand to reason that big rocks such as those at Devil's Kitchen would make good flank markers, but I had never seen those before. Maybe I just happened to look at it the right way this time.
It's those small details that are continually new to me that make me want to return to Gettysburg again and again, whether details about the men who fought there, the battlefield park's creation, or the things in the town that are a part of the whole story of Gettysburg.