Johnny Shafto
Corporal
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2021
Courtesy of GettysburgSculptures.com A fantastic website.
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I need me a pecan nut log!
I need me a pecan nut log!
Thanks, Johnny! The changes in the town and on the battlefield over the years is kind of my thing. I have tons of photos from the past that I post on a couple Facebook groups I belong to. The NPS at Gettysburg and the Adams County Historical Society have huge archives you can check out (some pics online, some you have to view at those places), but there are only a few books that address the changes on the battlefield. You might want to check out William Frassinito’s Then and Now series of books; they have them at the Visitor’s Center or online, and they are good but not terribly up to date. I usually post a historical photo each day on Gettysburg Past and Present over on FB.This post by pamc153PA is absolutely fascinating. So much so it leads me to wonder if something exists that details the metamorphosis of the area as it developed before and after the battle up to a date of publication? Naturally those fateful days from early June through mid July of 1863 have been well documented. Bradley Gottfried’s excellent atlas of the campaign comes immediately to mind. But a Stuckeys near the Peach Orchard! A book replete with photos of such examples would surely be well received. Or does it already in exist? Proceeds to The Gettysburg Foundation and The American Battlefield Trust perhaps? Wondering. JS
I'd never heard of the swimming pool. That's unbelievable - but battlefield preservation must have had a different meaning back then.
The question is who gave the military the permission to use this ground for military exercises.?
An old photo I found online showing what the Emmitsburg road once looked like.
The earlier post by @J. D. Stevens refers, I think, to an officers swimming pool in front of the rock wall at the Angle that was built for the 1918 camp, so that doesn't sound like private property. Below is a map of Gettysburg burials on the field after the battle.Probably located on private property ar the time
There's a similar volume put out by Arcadia Publishing. They also have books on Gettysburg in their Images of America and Vintage Postcards series. (I haven't read those, but I have other books in both series and they're full of great pictures and info.)Another book to check out, is "Gettysburg: Then and Now". Author's last name was Vanderslice. I passed on a vintage copy decades ago at the Conflict bookstore. Luckily, Bob Younger did a reprint and I have one of those.
The book is nowhere as comprehensive as Frasannito's, but there are a few things in it, overlooked by Bill.
Desjardin was one I was trying to remember! Thanks!@Johnny Shafto here is a short list of books that will help answer some of your questions:
Thomas Desjardin, These Honored Dead: How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory (2003)
Barbara Platt, This is Holy Ground: A History of the Gettysburg Battlefield (2001)
Jim Weeks, Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine (2003)
Jennifer Murray, On a Great Battlefield: the Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013 (2014)
My own work on Chickamauga suggests that the veterans and the War Department wanted the battlefields to be useful and educational to future generations of military personnel, thus the intensive use during the War with Spain and the two World Wars. Even after the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park was property of the NPS, the nearby presence of Fort Olgethorpe led to its use as a WAC and POW camp in WWII.
Thomas Desjardin, These Honored Dead: How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory (2003)
Barbara Platt, This is Holy Ground: A History of the Gettysburg Battlefield (2001)
Jim Weeks, Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine (2003)
Jennifer Murray, On a Great Battlefield: the Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013 (2014)