My brilliant blog 1844

I walked Cemetery Ridge on a cold morning whilst the park was practically empty, only a ranger’s truck idling close to the Pennsylvania Monument and a pair in windbreakers tracing a map with their hands. The grass still holds the contours of previous earthworks, low and stubborn. If you stand close the Copse of Trees and face west, you notice precisely what the adult males of Pickett’s department saw. A mile of gently increasing floor, a low stone wall, flags fluttering, an