Fri., July 18
I once had a very low-achieving student who for the life of him couldn’t process anything he read. When we’d read together, he’d read very slowly but even what he would read, he couldn’t internalize. As a result of his difficulties, he rarely did his homework and just barely passed into high school. He was an okay kid and it appeared he was trying his best. Unbeknownst to me one day, he had picked out a book from the little library of books I had in my classroom. It was some book that I had gotten free from another teacher who was going to toss it out, but it was a book on military history, the Revolutionary War I think it was. I was floored when this same kid who always came in to class sulking, came in to me to let me know that he had picked up this book, finished it, and loved it. Could he have any more.
I am telling this story to illustrate the passion that some people (usually male) have for military history and my own apathy to it. Our tour guide, Mark Snell, resident of Gettysburg who has written on the subject, had this passion. Some of the other teachers in our tour had this passion. They were interested to learn the minutae of the military maneuvers of those three days at Gettysburg. Me, not so much. I understand that the Civil War was a more significant war in our history than many realize, that the U.S. lost more lives in that war than in any other war. I understand that it was and is the only war fought on American soil and as a result had an enormous impact on our country. I understand that Gettysburg was the pivotal battle which changed the tide of the war in favor of the Union army. I’m actually interested in the technology that abetted the Union victory—the Winchester rifle, the canned goods, the railroad. But the actual maneuvers of the soldiers. I don’t know. I wasn’t into it.
It was a speedy tour. We got to see the new Gettysburg Visitor Center which opened up to the public less than a year ago. We got a special concert given to us by the Federal City Brass Band (the highlight of the day, everyone agreed). We drove through the battlefields, which have been left as orchards and pastures in an effort to maintain the same landscape as it was in 1863. And we finished off the tour in the Gettysburg Cemetary, where the musically inclined among us played dirges for the dead soldiers.
No one was expecting much of the Federal City Brass band. I mean, a brass band. We were expecting tinny sounding chaos, but the men (and woman) in the band took those period instruments (each tuned differently and at a higher pitch that instruments today) and creating some solid melodies. I didn’t realize that each regiment had their own 24-person band which led the charge! (Contrary to what we would think, the bands did not have a high casualty rate. I forget why this was.) The regiment bands were responsible for giving the soldiers the signal to wake up in the morning (the familiar bugle blare we’re familiar with, followed by 10 minutes of utter drumming horror). The bands gave a signal to feed the horses, a signal the horses knew too evidently as the horses would whinny and stamp up a storm when this signal was played. There was a signal to begin marching, to stop marching, there was a signal to rest, a signal to rise, and even a prelude signal to indicate the regiment who the signal was for! This in addition to the regular marching songs and hymns. One of the founders of the group Jari Villanueva, considered the foremost authority on these bugle call Taps, did a great job introducing each of the songs.
The drive between Pittsburgh and Gettysburg is Pennsylvania Dutch country, green pastoral landscapes with shifting hues of green, cottonwood blowing by and those strange haphazardly placed haystacks shining in the sun. Brian Latham, accompanied by Dan Hanczar and Ben Hesse, started singing some blues songs on the way back. Soon Lyn, our choir teacher from Texas, joined in. And after someone played “Wind Beneath My Wings”, Tammy, our technie turned librarian, came over to join in. Tammy took down her hair and sang “Wagon Wheel”, a song which she’d clearly sung before and which blew my socks off. They played “Good Morning, America”. Paul Sweeney broke in with a freshly written blues song entitled “Gettysburg Blues” with a couple of verses on our rushed day and the lack of whining despite.
I once had a very low-achieving student who for the life of him couldn’t process anything he read. When we’d read together, he’d read very slowly but even what he would read, he couldn’t internalize. As a result of his difficulties, he rarely did his homework and just barely passed into high school. He was an okay kid and it appeared he was trying his best. Unbeknownst to me one day, he had picked out a book from the little library of books I had in my classroom. It was some book that I had gotten free from another teacher who was going to toss it out, but it was a book on military history, the Revolutionary War I think it was. I was floored when this same kid who always came in to class sulking, came in to me to let me know that he had picked up this book, finished it, and loved it. Could he have any more.
I am telling this story to illustrate the passion that some people (usually male) have for military history and my own apathy to it. Our tour guide, Mark Snell, resident of Gettysburg who has written on the subject, had this passion. Some of the other teachers in our tour had this passion. They were interested to learn the minutae of the military maneuvers of those three days at Gettysburg. Me, not so much. I understand that the Civil War was a more significant war in our history than many realize, that the U.S. lost more lives in that war than in any other war. I understand that it was and is the only war fought on American soil and as a result had an enormous impact on our country. I understand that Gettysburg was the pivotal battle which changed the tide of the war in favor of the Union army. I’m actually interested in the technology that abetted the Union victory—the Winchester rifle, the canned goods, the railroad. But the actual maneuvers of the soldiers. I don’t know. I wasn’t into it.
It was a speedy tour. We got to see the new Gettysburg Visitor Center which opened up to the public less than a year ago. We got a special concert given to us by the Federal City Brass Band (the highlight of the day, everyone agreed). We drove through the battlefields, which have been left as orchards and pastures in an effort to maintain the same landscape as it was in 1863. And we finished off the tour in the Gettysburg Cemetary, where the musically inclined among us played dirges for the dead soldiers.
No one was expecting much of the Federal City Brass band. I mean, a brass band. We were expecting tinny sounding chaos, but the men (and woman) in the band took those period instruments (each tuned differently and at a higher pitch that instruments today) and creating some solid melodies. I didn’t realize that each regiment had their own 24-person band which led the charge! (Contrary to what we would think, the bands did not have a high casualty rate. I forget why this was.) The regiment bands were responsible for giving the soldiers the signal to wake up in the morning (the familiar bugle blare we’re familiar with, followed by 10 minutes of utter drumming horror). The bands gave a signal to feed the horses, a signal the horses knew too evidently as the horses would whinny and stamp up a storm when this signal was played. There was a signal to begin marching, to stop marching, there was a signal to rest, a signal to rise, and even a prelude signal to indicate the regiment who the signal was for! This in addition to the regular marching songs and hymns. One of the founders of the group Jari Villanueva, considered the foremost authority on these bugle call Taps, did a great job introducing each of the songs.
The drive between Pittsburgh and Gettysburg is Pennsylvania Dutch country, green pastoral landscapes with shifting hues of green, cottonwood blowing by and those strange haphazardly placed haystacks shining in the sun. Brian Latham, accompanied by Dan Hanczar and Ben Hesse, started singing some blues songs on the way back. Soon Lyn, our choir teacher from Texas, joined in. And after someone played “Wind Beneath My Wings”, Tammy, our technie turned librarian, came over to join in. Tammy took down her hair and sang “Wagon Wheel”, a song which she’d clearly sung before and which blew my socks off. They played “Good Morning, America”. Paul Sweeney broke in with a freshly written blues song entitled “Gettysburg Blues” with a couple of verses on our rushed day and the lack of whining despite.
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