Gettysburg, a bit of a haul from our usual stomping grounds (some 3 hours away from Edison), seems like a totally different country than suburban New Jersey. The restaurants change from Stewarts Root Beer and Panera to Hoss's Steak House and Red Robin. The view changes from skyline to rolling hills. Most importantly, the sporting goods shops are bigger and packed with cheap, cheap goodies.
It's also very quiet out in this little slice of Americana: the population of Gettysburg remains about even with the number of dead from the battle some century and a half after Pickett's Charge. The trail itself is a walk back in history that nicely circumvents a large portion of the overdeveloped and monument-pocked roads. Starting roughly at the visitor's center and the copse of trees that may or may not mark the high water mark of the Confederacy (ask a tour guide for a lengthy response), the trail goes south towards the Round Tops. Staying on the eastward side of Hancock Avenue, the trail follows the road and eventually jogs off into the more heavily wooded road paralleling Sedgwick Ave. While the road tends to stay to the north side of the peak the trail stays to the south, looping around Big Round Top in a loop that keeps the hiker in the precious, precious shade.
The trail continues east to the Confederate line of battle and up Warfield Ridge, into the woods. While the auto tour covers the region between the two hills (long considered the bloodiest regions of Gettysburg) the hike circumvents it. Instead it heads northbound to the Virginia Memorial, with its statue to Lee providing a strong counterpoint to the statue of Grant on the Union Lines.
The hike across this farmland, barren of trees as it was in the 1860s, is one of the most profound experiences available to any hiker. The field made famous by Pickett's Charge, is not the flat field envisioned by most people prior to visiting Gettysburg. There is a feeling of foreboding felt when marching upon the long-silent Union guns. The trail follows the path of the 12,500 Confederate troops that stepped off from Seminary Ridge. Conventionally, the walk across the field ends at The Angle, where Cushing's Battery met the full brunt of Armistad and Garnett's brigades. Within a few yards of each other are the resting grounds of those two Confederate generals who were killed breaching the Yankee position. All 15 of the regimental commanders under Pickett would be lost that day, representing the finest practical military officers of their day, as comfortable leading a charge against a fortified position as providing an effective defense against such an attack.
The counterpoint to the Angle and its grim monuments, the Bryan House offers a far more fulfilling end to a hike at Gettysburg. The Bryan House, located directly between The Angle and the Visitor's Center, marks the furthest advance of the northern section of the Confederate advance, With gallantry typical of the Confederate military the 11th Mississippi breached the Union defenses right at this wall. The flag changed hands at least four times as carrier after carrier was lost to canister and bullet alike. At the wall right by the monument their flag fell for the last time that day. The story that makes this location so significant in comparison to The Angle is the owner of the land. On that day in 1863 the Bryan House was owned and operated by a free slave, one Abraham Bryan. So, in effect, one could say that the last legitimate hope of the Confederate died on the property of a freed slave.
