Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1892-10-20
He BATTLE FIELD.
/ FAMOUS BATTLEFIELD.

burg Now a scene Of Beauty and
Interest.
scene of the great battle which
back the invading army of Gen
presents at this day. July /. 1892,
sling contrast TO the scene on the
field twenty-nine years ago. Then
hill-sides and the wheat-fields were
iyered with the terrible results of a
conflict in which one hundred and sew
enty-fve thousand men had been en-
gagged in a hand-to-hand conflict.
armed with the most approved death
dealing instruments of war which
modern science and ingenuity had de-
vised. For three days the conflict had
ragged, scarcely interrupted by the
shadows of night. The people of Get
tysburg had hidden themselves in the
cellars of their houses and crowds of
horses and men had fed through the
streets, which were the scene of rout
and carnage. The battles of the first
two days were adverse to the union
arms, and the advance posts of Gen
Meade had retired behind Gettysburg,
resting on Cemetery Hill and extending
as far as Round Top mountain. The
tremendous battle of July was
fought by Gen. Meade on the de-
fensive, Gen. Lee taking the of
fensive and throwing the whole
weight of the flower of his army on the
center of the union line, hoping to
break the union army in two and then
destroy it in detail The repulse of
Picketts tremendous charge at the
Stone Wall where Gen. Armistead and
Lieut. Cushing were killed signalized
the failure of Gen. Lees plans and the
defeat and destruction of one of the
choicest divisions of his army
In the night of the Sd of July, Gen.
Lee gathered up his remaining forces
and commenced his hasty retreat to the
Virginia shore. The sun of the 4th of
July, 1868, rose upon the battlefield
covered with dead and dying, Six days
after the first battle the dead were still
unburied and lay upon the field where
they fell Many of them had been
stripped of their clothing, and their
wounded bodies presented a CHASTITY
spectacle The smoke of the artillery
fire hung in dark cloud over the scene.
A great sacrifice had been made Brave
safety of their country. The first and
last invasion of the north had passed
into history, and henceforth the war for
the union was to be fought out on the
other side of the Potomac.
After nearly thirty years, a visit to
that historic battlefield reveals another
picture, and one which appeals to the
gratitude and patriotism of every Amer
lean. Every foot of ground covered in
that mighty conflict is marked off, and
the scene of every incident of the battle
and of the part taken in it by regi-
ments, brigades and corps of the union
army marked by appropriate monu-
ments In walking over a space of
twenty-five square miles, these monu-
ments meet you at every turn; and with
their sculptured inscriptions furnish a
complete history of the great conflict.
If no other record existed but the
bronze, marble and granite memorials
already erected, they would carry down
to the ,emotest posterity a correct his
torical record of the great scene here
enacted
The sun now shines upon a SCENE of
singular beauty and interest. The Gull
tivated fields, the beautiful variegated
landscape, the wooded hills seem to
smile in the eye of the sun. A few
trees with bullet-marks, few earth
works almost leveled, a house and barn
here and there, riddled with bullets,
are all that remain of the devastation
of the day of battle. Nature has COW
cred all and obliterated every trace of
violence. Only the beautiful monu-
ments, which a grateful people have
raised to perpetuate the memory of the
brave men who fought and died on this
field, presents visible memorials of the
past.-N. Y. Ledger.