Gettysburg offers visitors much more than war
Town boasts vibrant arts, music scene as alternative to touring battlefields
GETTYSBURG, PA.— Between the small “Civil War Building” plaques lining buildings along Chambersburg St. there is evidence of another onslaught this day — drawings on paper are affixed to the brick, free for the taking, in a semiregular “Art Attack” in which a local artist gives away a stockpile of her work.
You notice Nanette Hatzes’s art — colourful abstracts, thoughtful faces and the occasional mermaid — when you look away from signage about yet another building that was used as a hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. After the threeday conflict, more than 50,000 men were dead, injured or missing.
But that bloody history doesn’t mean people here can’t celebrate life. “There’s a lot of music and local art,” says Vince Bruinsma who has lived in Gettysburg for four years. “There is a thriving community here of people who enjoy creative living.” Bruinsma is co-director of Waldo’s and Company, a café and studio space that’s tucked away in an alley behind stores decked out with red, white and blue bunting.
Gettysburg was a town of 2,000 when the Civil War showed up on its doorstep almost by accident when the Union and Confederate armies collided on the roads leading to town. These days, nearly four million visitors ride into town over the year.
This morning, I appear to be the only tourist taking the Lincoln Line trolley bus to the visitors’ centre at Gettysburg National Military Park. The driver pulls over to pick up a local flagging her down on Baltimore St. “We do have stops with signs,” the driver shrugs, “but this way is easypeasy.”
She points out some sites: A stone building that was part of the Underground Railroad, Dobbin House, is “the best restaurant in town.” Down the street she recommends Appalachian Brewing Co. for a burger and craft beer or soda. We arrive at the centre and I hop off to get a crash course on the famous battle while she drives off with locals getting on with their day.
After a short film (narrated by Morgan Freeman) and a gander at the Cyclorama, a 360-degree painting of the doomed Confederate charge on the battle’s third day, I hop on a bike. We cycle along battle lines, stopping to learn about different regimental monuments. As the youngest of our group does cartwheels in pink leggings, her brother asks what infantry means.
“I see everything from experienced military historians to first-timers to academics to people who think these guys wore three-cornered caps,” says Bruce Rice, our licenced guide on a three-hour GettysBike tour of the battlefields.
“Purely from a military history standpoint, the Battle of Gettysburg is one of about 10 battles in the course of history that are classic studies.” You don’t need to know your Meade from Lee to enjoy touring the green fields of the battlefields with a bike, bus, Segway, hot air balloon, in your car with a hired guide, rented iPad (loaded with GPS and augmented reality) or with an app on your phone.
This is the most documented battlefield in the world, with more than 1,300 monuments and markers (and a handful of “Witness Trees” that saw the horror first hand).
The Soldiers’ National Cemetery has the only known monument dedicated to a speech, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He got the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” message right in November1863, but its legacy wrong, declaring “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here . . .”
Tourists pose with a Lincoln statue (one of eight in town) in Lincoln Square (which is actually a circle) in the middle of Gettysburg. It’s hopping on this Friday night, with people enjoying the patios outside Hauser Estate Winery and the Gettysburg Hotel. Down the street, Knob Hall Winery’s tasting room is full and at Garryowen Irish Pub, a guy with stars and stripes tattooed on his calf eats wings waiting for the band to start.
“How stinking cute,” declares a woman Saturday morning as she walks into the farmers market that’s taken over the square/circle. A couple blocks up, college students, bikers and locals line up to get pancakes at the Lincoln Diner. Down at Dunlap’s, the regulars eat their eggs at the counter watching Fox News. Everywhere in the town of 7,000, drivers tend to stop for jaywalkers.
“There is a stereotype you hear of Gettysburg from the time you’re in elementary school and you just think of it as the battlefield during the Civil War,” says Bruinsma.
“But there is a pretty cool little community that lives here year round and there is a lot more to do than just tour the battlefields.”
And that’s a message you can wear on a T-shirt from Waldo’s that reads: “Gettysburg: We are more than war.” Jennifer Allford was a guest of Destination Gettysburg and its partners. Neither reviewed nor approved the story.