165.1.92.163 Comments You have to understand some of this attitude on behalf of professional battlefield guides, who as you may or may not know devote untold years of their lives studying the details and nuances of this battle and the campaign in order to provide specific tours to visitors from all the states. Re-enactors join units.
Guides earn licenses, and most who attempt to get licenses fail.
Licensed guides have made a profound financial sacrifice to pursue a professional they love. I have learned a great deal, and gained useful insight, from devoted living history re-enactors who grasp historical material at an emotional and personal level difficult to find on the written page. I personally have found my intensive study of Gettysburg and of the events of the first six months of 1863 to be overwhelming and intimidating, so much so that when plain questions are asked I often do not know how to answer them plainly. This hesitance comes out of a deep and abiding respect for the complexities and controversies of this material. All the guides I have met, and it has been many, have a profound grasp of this.