"Gettysburg braces for Civil War battle’s 150th anniversary; Pa. community expecting some 4 million visitors" by Jef Feeley | Bloomberg News, June 25, 2013
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — The community about 125 miles west of Philadelphia is readying for as many as 4 million visitors during its commemoration of the clash between Union and Confederate forces in July 1863, and the landmark presidential speech in November of that year as the war raged....
The anniversary of the war’s bloodiest battle, coupled with the Oscar-winning 2012 movie ‘‘Lincoln,’’ will bring Piotr Narloch and five pals from Krakow, Poland, to help reenact part of the fighting....
What, no NATO deployment?
Also see: Sunday Globe Special: Night at the Oscars
I didn't see it.
The estimated 15,000 Civil War reenactors on hand this year, while smaller in number compared with the millions of tourists, will stand out with their rifles, pitched tents, and campfires on farms near the battlefields. They’ll include Narloch and his Polish friends.
The group will travel 5,000 miles to stage the July 2 Culp’s Hill assault by the 14th Louisiana Infantry Regiment, a Confederate unit largely composed of Polish immigrants. They’ll join other history buffs at the Bushey Farm outside Gettysburg starting June 27....
Look, it's not like I don't respect the past wars to not remember them; it's the PLAY WAR stuff that bothers me! History is also about more than wars!
The epic battle began as Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee invaded Pennsylvania during the war’s third year. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was beaten back by the Union’s Army of the Potomac led by General George G. Meade, a Pennsylvanian. Meade defeated a desperate charge by General George Pickett’s men on the last of three days of fighting, which left more than 50,000 combatants dead, wounded or missing....
Yeah, yeah, I saw the movie.
Reenactments provide living history....
‘‘This is our Olympic moment.’’
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It really is a war paper through and through.
