ANOTHER FOURTH OF JULY

These images are from the aftermath of the great Battle of Gettysburg, fought 1 - 3 July, 1863.

Dead Union soldiers near the Emmittsburg Road portion of the Battlefield.

Fallen Union and Confederate soldiers lay intermingled from the Living Hell that was Devils Den.

Union and Confederate dead lay where they fell at the Little Round Top, where the extreme left of the Union line was held on the first day of the battle.

Thousands of horses shared the same fate as the soldiers of both Armies.

Aftermath of the famous charge of Pickett's CSA Division.

The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was the High Tide of the Confederacy and the turning point of the Civil War for Union. In the space of three days in July a total of 17,684 Union soldiers were killed and wounded; 18,750 Confederate soldiers killed and wounded, in a monumental struggle that began as a forage patrol for a shoe factory. The significance of this battle was codified by the words of Abraham Lincoln, who redefined the cause and meaning of America in his great Gettysburg Address:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate . . . we can not consecrate . . . we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The reason why the outcome of Gettysburg was so important are contained within these words, carved in stone upon the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. - S.L.

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

Today is the 194th anniversary of the great Battle of Waterloo. 25,000 Frenchmen killed or wounded, 7,000 captured, 15,000 missing; 22,000 Englishmen, Dutchmen and Germans killed or wounded; all in the space of an afternoon.

Lord Arthur Wellesley the Duke of Wellington

Several myths and legends surround the Iron Duke; he was English coolness-under-fire, personified. One anecdote has him napping under a tree with a newspaper over his face when his subordinates alerted him to the nearby presence of the Emperor of France, Napoleon himself. "Shall we shoot at him, sir?" The cool-as-a-cucumber-reply, "Certainly not! Generals have far more important things to do than take potshots at each other."

Other notables include Prince William of Orange, future King of the Netherlands. This is back when royalty earned their titles, apparently; Prince William was wounded during the battle.
Prince William of Orange

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher arrived late in the day. His Prussian Legions tipped the balance of power on the battlefield and decided the issue.
Field Marshall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher

At the height of the battle, the French cavalry charge the British lines:
The British Infantry squares held, of course. Here's how it looked to the oncoming French:

My neighbor in Stuttgart, an elderly gentleman who remembered the French coming to town at the end of World War II, said of Napoleon: "Only Hitler was worse!"

When my youngest daughter was one, we used to joke and call her "Napoleon" because she had a curl like this in the middle of her forehead. She used to sulk just like this, as well.


Waterloo is a tiny village in Belgium, just south of Brussels. I have been there, of course.

Viewing the great panoramic painting of the battle, inside the ancient museum. The panorama was painted by Demoulin at the turn of the century.

Team member VA Shepard once remarked, "Napoleon had his Waterloo, we had Gettysburg. The difference was, after Gettysburg our war still ran on for two more years."
I cannot imagine combat on this scale.