things tourists say and we just love 'em for it

THINGS TOURISTS SAY AND WE JUST LOVE 'EM FOR IT

Matt Callery

Matt Callery is producer and host of Addressing Gettysburg Podcast...and our hero. 

Let's just get this out in the open before we start having fun: everyone is a tourist, some time, somewhere. All of us. So let us laugh together at some of the things tourists say here at Gettysburg. I'll explain why each question or statement is funny or dunder-headed in italics. The source of these sayings are a mix of firsthand experience, secondhand experience, legend and lore that I just can't believe someone actually said and, well, that's it. Let us begin, in random order.

• "Whose job was it to put up the monuments before the battle?" Evidently, this lady thought that monuments go up before an event. That Civil War generation; they had such foresight!

And a variation on that theme: "wasn't it nice that someone put the monument up so the soldiers would know where to go?

• "Why don't any of the monuments have bullet holes?" Back in 1903, the United States government spent $1.5 million repairing all bullet holes in the monuments "to ensure that future generations will be able to see the monuments as they were before the battle". Actually, that quote is entirely made up. The monuments were, for the most part, erected by the veterans of the battle. They mark the forward-most position their regiment held. In some cases, there's a secondary monument to the primary one, like in the case of the 26th North Carolina, for instance. 

"Can I tie up my boat to the High Water mark?"

• Sigh. There are lakes and streams and creeks and ponds all over Pennsylvania. Many are around Gettysburg. Some run through the battlefield/National Park. None are navigable in the way this man was thinking. "He had to be joking,"  you say. Well, I pressed the source of this gem to think hard and determine if this man was joking. The source really seemed to want to say that the man was joking. But, alas, he couldn't. It's questions like these that make me think that somewhere along the way there was a smart-alec of a guide who came up with these stories and then just spread them around as true. But, then again, I've spoken to many, many tourists, so... yeah.

"Will I find any bullets on the ground?"

• Yes. If you drop one and recover it. Bullets/cannonballs/swords/knives/bayonets/skeletonscan't or bones are most likely still underground around the battlefield/Park. Think about it. Over 100,000 men firing tons of metal for three days-- it can't all be recovered. I've even recently heard of a guide who went exploring through a creek discovering a bullet just laying there amid the pebbles and stones on the creekbed. So, I'm not saying that it can't happen. It's just unlikely and you'd have to be very lucky to stumble upon it. And do you want to know how to take that good luck and turn it into bad luck? It's simple. Take it. Then you'll saddle yourself with fines and--who knows?-- possibly jailtime (not too sure about the legal punishment that comes with relic hunting; all I need to know is that I can get into some deep doo-doo if I take an artifact from the field.). What you should do is just leave it and notify the park service. If you don't know just where you are, look around for a Ranger or Park Police, even a Licensed Battlefield Guide (they wear light blue shirts and gray pants and have this patch and badge). DO NOT TAKE IT!

"Where is the building that Lee surrendered in?"

• I was literally asked this question WHILST WRITING THIS BLOGPOST! As even the novice student of the Battle of Gettysburg knows, in April, 1865, Robert E. Lee said to his lieutenants, "Guys, we can't win this war. So, let's go back to Gettysburg to surrender." But seriously, folks. We should all know that Lee did NOT surrender here at Gettysburg. Where is the building that Lee surrendered in? Why, it's at Appomattox Courthouse...in VIRGINIA. I know, "but history is boring. Who cares about that sh*t?" Well, someone who doesn't want to end up in a blogpost, for one. ;-)

"We just watched the movie Gettysburg. Where did they bury Buster?"

• Ok, I gotta be forgiving here. Buster isn't buried becuase he never died and he never died because he never lived. We get it. [We're a movie culture and, no matter how many times we're told "movies aren't real. Read a book" we never do and keep thinking everything depicted in the movie is true to life. As we discuss in a yet-to-be-released bonus episode featuring author D. Scott Hartwig, the character of "Buster Kilrain" is ficticous. Never existed. In fact, he is the "voice" of "The Killer Angels" author Michael Shaara. He also "damns all gentlemen". 

As you'll find when our podcast is released, while we do take our history seriously, we love it and have a passion for it. Humor is, as it should be, a part of that passion, and, as I pointed out at the start of this post, we are ALL tourists somewhere. 

---