Ride with the Rebels to Gettysburg

“In great deeds something abides.  On great fields, something stays.”

~Joshua Chamberlain, 1888

Chamberlain made those remarks at the dedication of the 20^th Maine monument at Gettysburg.  Chamberlain was a Union officer during the Battle of Gettysburg and his steely defense and determined leadership saved the strategic high ground of Little Round Top from a Confederate infantry charge.  Chamberlain’s men from Maine found themselves protecting the left flank of the Union Line early on the second day of the battle, July 2, 1863.  The high ground of the small bump of Little Round Top was key to the battlefield.  Chamberlain, sensing a swing in the battle’s momentum ordered bayonets be fixed and rather than repulse the oncoming Rebels, the 20th Maine charged down the slope into a hornet’s nest of hand-to-hand combat with the 15^th Alabama Regiment.  Rallying under the orders of Chamberlain the Mainers beat back the Alabamans and Round Top and the Union line was secured.  Chamberlain was wounded twice in the fighting.  He was already suffering from dysentery and was later sent behind the lines to recover.  He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

This week the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg begins with festivities leading up to the largest battle reenactment ever.  Over 10,000 reenactors, 130 artillery pieces, and hundreds of men on horseback will take spectators back in time to 1863 in a series of mock battles held over four days (July 4-7).   Over the last decade the Gettysburg National Battlefield Park has done painstaking work to take the battlefield back to the look and feel of July 1, 2, and 3 of 1863.  Anything that had been built or moved to the field in the years after the battle has been removed.  Today, the battlefield is as it appeared in 1863.     

   

Take a bike ride with the ghosts of Southern rebels.  Start in Taneytown, Maryland.  Park the car at Taneytown Memorial Park.  Take a quick warm up ride through town.  The small hamlet was for a short time the headquarters of Union General George Meade around the time of Gettysburg.  The ride to the battlefield will take you out of town on Harney Road (route 134).  Roughly six miles into your ride you will cross the Mason-Dixon Line and enter the North.  When Robert E. Lee entered Pennsylvania on the march to Gettysburg it was the first time Southern troops had ever crossed the Mason-Dixon.  They would cross the line again just days later in retreat.  It would be for the last time.    

 

Once in Pennsylvania Harney Road becomes Taneytown Road and in another six miles you will be on the battlefield.  Taneytown Road bisects the great meadows and fields of Gettysburg.  It is from across these meadows that Gen. George Pickett and thousands of Confederates made one final and catastrophic assault at the formidable Union army.   So many men lost their lives in these fields that to this day scores of vultures return expecting to find the remnants of soldiers.  

Once inside the Battlefield Park numerous serpentine roads allow riders to view the monuments and statues erected to honor the valor of men--what Lincoln called the “last full measure of devotion.”  It has been said that at night those statues come to life to continue the Battle of Gettysburg.

Please visit our website for new Product and Bicycle Reviews at www.stickybottleteam.net.  We are preparing now for the 100^th Tour de France which begins this Saturday.  In the meantime please re-read our post “Le Tour to Challenge Ancient Aragon” from October, 2012.