Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day

Here in central Pennsylvania, the war most remembered is the Civil War. Gettysburg is just on the other side of South Mountain from us here in Shippensburg, and here in the Cumberland Valley Chambersburg was burned and Shippensburg occupied by the Confederate Army in the course of Lee's march on the Union forces in Gettysburg. So for this year's Memorial Day post I thought I'd focus on a Civil War theme. Above is the grave of a Grand Army of the Republic soldier in Shippensburg's God's Acre cemetery on Prince St. behind the Vigilant Hose Company. And below is a video which includes an old recording of "Battle Cry of Freedom", the rallying song of the Union forces in the Civil War. The person who posted it says that the singers were veterans of the GAR.


I was going to include Lincoln's Gettysburg address in this, but my Mom and I are making a trip over the mountain to Gettysburg next week, so I'll save it for then. We were contemplating going there today, but there was a chance Sarah Palin was going to come through there on her bus trip, and neither one of us trusted ourselves not to commit mayhem on the evil witch. So next week it is.

Note: Tomorrow I'll be posting some other pictures taken on my walk today, including a new spider macro and a shot of Mama and fuzzy chick Redtail Hawks from the nest on Possum Hollow Rd. I didn't want to interfere with today's special Memorial Day edition, so stay tuned tomorrow!

Photo & text © 2011 by A. Roy Hilbinger

6 comments:

  1. "There was a chance Sarah Palin was going to come through there on her bus trip, and neither one of us trusted ourselves not to commit mayhem on the evil witch."

    ha ha....i know what you mean!

    heard she who will not be names was participating in the rolling thunder event in dc this weekend - of all the nerve!


    the roots of memorial day are with the civil war, so your focus is spot on.

    hope you are having a good one and it's not too beastly hot there...oy is is hot here!

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  2. Kim. it's beastly hot here, too; another reason why we opted out of G-burg today.

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  3. ...I enjoyed listening to the video. You can hear history through it. I like the accents too.

    ...in a week and a half we've gone from 55 degrees and rainy to sunny and 95!

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  4. Great song! I love the old recording, complete with that familiar hiss.

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  5. I wonder how many realise that Memorial Day goes that far back. As for Ms I can pillion on a Harley Palin, if she really has a snowball's chance in Hell of running for President, I will be bitterly disappointed with the American people.

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  6. As always, endlessly fascinating Roy. Thanks for sending President Obama over here last week, we appreciated his visit. As for Sarah P, you can keep her to yourselves.

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