Confederate Veteran at the (Inner) Angle

Gettysburg Greg

First Sergeant
Joined
Jun 6, 2010
Location
Decatur, Illinois
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On the right, a Confederate veteran sits on the right flank marker of the 71st Pa pondering what could have been in this early reunion photo. It appears (to me) that the carriage full of tourists has stopped to be included in the photo. On the left in Arnold's Battery monument and the Copse of Trees is seen in the right background. When I shot the modern view on the left a couple of years ago, I noticed that coincidentally, the spokes on the carriage wheels matched up exactly in both photos, on both guns. Does this mean the guns have not been moved for over a hundred years? I doubt it, just an interesting observation. :wink:
 
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On the right, a Confederate veteran sits on the right flank marker of the 71st Pa pondering what could have been in this early reunion photo. It appears (to me) that the carriage full of tourists has stopped to be included in the photo. On the left in Arnold's Battery monument and the Copse of Trees is seen in the right background. When I shot the modern view on the left a couple of years ago, I noticed that coincidentally, the spokes on the carriage wheels matched up exactly in both photos, on both guns. Does this mean the guns have not been moved for over a hundred years? I doubt it, just an interesting observation. :wink:

Extremely unlikely. The carriages are iron reproductions made in the 1890s when the park was established and they have to be periodically maintained to replace rusted parts and to get repainted. There's a special shop and crew that does that. I can, though, imagine that they might have taken photos before they moved the guns and tried to reposition them as they had been. It would be an amazing thing if that just happened by chance !
 
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On the right, a Confederate veteran sits on the right flank marker of the 71st Pa pondering what could have been in this early reunion photo. It appears (to me) that the carriage full of tourists has stopped to be included in the photo. On the left in Arnold's Battery monument and the Copse of Trees is seen in the right background. When I shot the modern view on the left a couple of years ago, I noticed that coincidentally, the spokes on the carriage wheels matched up exactly in both photos, on both guns. Does this mean the guns have not been moved for over a hundred years? I doubt it, just an interesting observation. :wink:
You very well could be correct about the cannon not being moved. The only thing I see different is the paint job on the left one. If it was moved..that is one freaky coincidence that it matches darn near perfect with the photo on the right. :smile:
 
I created a thread in the battlefield preservation forum about the Gettysburg cannon shop where all the preservation of metal objects is done. Didn't want to sidetrack this one but there was a question about if the guns had been moved (and all of them have at least once since 1999). I thought it pretty interesting. So, if you're interested in that sort of thing go have a look.
 
I created a thread in the battlefield preservation forum about the Gettysburg cannon shop where all the preservation of metal objects is done. Didn't want to sidetrack this one but there was a question about if the guns had been moved (and all of them have at least once since 1999). I thought it pretty interesting. So, if you're interested in that sort of thing go have a look.
I am planning a visit to Gettysburg this spring in preparation to (GOD I HOPE!!!!) move there, Harrisburg, or York. I will definitely check it out.
 
I guess the thing I noticed about two photos was that stone wall had fallen more since early photo taken.

I really like the old stone walls. There are many in Ky. and most have been well preserved.
Well I'll be... I never noticed the walls...I was spoke fixated LOL. :laugh: I imagine more than a few of the rocks were "appropriated" by souvenir hunters over the years.
 
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I imagine that the lower, more jumbled wall, better reflects what the actual wall looked liked at the time of the battle, based on extant eyewitness accounts. In addition, veterans would take the time to reassemble a tumbled down wall to improve its effectiveness against minie balls and shell fragments.
 
Given the number of spokes in the cannon wheels it's almost as likely as not that a random placement would put the spokes pretty close to a previous alignment. And looking at a photo and putting an actual eye to something can have considerable differences.
 
Given the number of spokes in the cannon wheels it's almost as likely as not that a random placement would put the spokes pretty close to a previous alignment. And looking at a photo and putting an actual eye to something can have considerable differences.

Welllll .... I don't know about that. Careful measurement shows that there are fourteen spokes and another five spoke-sized spaces between them for a total of 84 possible spoke-sized slots per wheel. So, the probability that some spoke (not a given spoke) on one wheel would occupy one of the 84 possible spots is .1666 and the probability that spokes on three wheels would all do so (and all three do have spokes in the same positions) is .1666 cubed which is .0046 which makes it pretty unlikely to have occurred randomly.

So there !

BJ
 
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