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1938 Battle of Gettysburg 75th Blue/Grey Reunion.
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<p>[QUOTE="leeg, post: 3849055, member: 17073"]Next part:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> “They came by train like specters of a bygone era. The year was 1938, the average age of the boys in blue and gray was ninety-three, and the 75th anniversary of the battle marked the last great reunion of Union and Confederate veterans on the hallowed fields of Gettysburg. Just over 10,000 veterans of the War Between the States were still alive, representing the last direct links to the four pivotal years that shaped our nation. As this number grew fewer each year, these soldiers and the stories they possessed, faded from living memory into the annals of an ever-changing world. But from June 29th to July 6th, the memories of 1,845 old soldiers came together at Gettysburg.</p><p><br /></p><p> The wounds from America’s most terrible conflict were by no means healed by 1938. Sectional and racial divides still ran deep. Several veterans declined their invitations, animosity from a lifetime ago still fresh in their minds. Commissioners had difficulty convincing both the United Confederate Veterans and the Grand Army of the Republic to attend. However, the story of those who refused to come is not the story that survived the test of time.</p><p><br /></p><p> Instead, the stories remembered from the 75th anniversary were elderly soldiers in dusty uniforms shaking hands over the stone wall. The story of two veterans, one from the North and the other from the South, helping President Franklin Roosevelt dedicate a monument to peace. Stories like that of ninety-three year old Confederate veteran William H. Freeman, of Wetumka, Oklahoma, who explained to a reporter, ‘We’re here to bury the hatchet and forget all about that little fus,’ and his companion, a Union veteran who sentimentally replied, ‘We’ve done that long ago.’ This was a reunion during which every veteran received both a Union and a Confederate flag. To those who attended, this reunion was about nostalgia, and brotherhood, and the glory of a shared martial past.</p><p><br /></p><p> However, for as many veterans declined their invitations due to residual bitterness, many more declined due to poor health. Over 2,000 invitations were returned bearing the word ‘deceased.’ Three more soldiers would reach the reunion, but not make it back home. Every veteran arrived with an attendant, and a small army of Boy Scouts and Pennsylvania National Guardsman were enlisted to help the veterans navigate the reunion. Wheelchairs, buses, and hospitals were prepared, and the commissioners did all they could to ensure the comfort of these aged warriors.</p><p><br /></p><p> As these soldiers lived out their twilight years, they watched their world change. The United States had grown, faced and overcome new crises, and been catapulted onto a world’s stage.</p><p><br /></p><p>The veterans’ reunion was accompanied with sights such as tanks rolling down the streets of Gettysburg and air shows over the fields where the boys in blue and gray had met a lifetime ago. The world was on the cusp of a new and terrifying conflict, one that would shape another generation. Many of the Boy Scouts and the Guardsmen pushing the veterans’ wheelchairs in 1938 would fight their own war in 1941.</p><p><br /></p><p> Even fewer Civil War veterans would live to see the end of America’s next conflict. They were sometimes seen as curiosities, living museum pieces, and men who belonged to an unknowable past. Their chapter had reached its final page, and a return to Gettysburg was an appropriate end to the story. The veterans themselves seemed to recognize this, for near the end of their final reunion, some petitioned the government to allow them to “remain here on this hallowed hill till Gabriel shall call us to that eternal party where there is no strife, bitter hate, nor bloodshed and we are one for all and all for one.”<b>3</b></p><p><br /></p><p><b>3.</b> <b><i>All Roads Led to Gettysburg</i>: <i>The 75th Anniversary</i>, by Becky Oakes, 2013.</b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1020375[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Courtesy of DCW on the PCGS Coin Forum.</b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> “Return of the Blue and the Gray. On June 28, 1938, more than 2,000 veterans began arriving in Gettysburg, headed to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gett/index.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.nps.gov/gett/index.htm" rel="nofollow">Gettysburg National Military Park. </a>July 1, 2, 3, 4 1938, the official celebration of the Blue and the Gray who reunited in 1938 for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg began.</p><p><br /></p><p> Most were in their 80s and 90s, staying in two encampments and were ‘given the greatest care and attention’ with dispensaries and first-aid scattered throughout the camp.</p><p><br /></p><p> According to The Evening News that day, James Robert Paul of Charlotte, N.C., 105, said he was ‘the oldest Democrat in the country.’ He arrived in Gettysburg ‘as chipper as a lark.’ Paul was the only surviving member of Gen. Stonewall Jackson's 42nd Infantry, Company K.</p><p><br /></p><p> The veterans were in town for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Many were in wheelchairs or used canes. They held a reunion for two days before the four-day anniversary celebration. Two died before it was over.</p><p><br /></p><p> United States Regular Army soldiers camped there, too. They assisted the veterans.</p><p><br /></p><p> The Evening News on June 29 printed this large headline – ‘GETTYSBURG 'TAKEN' BY VETERANS.’ From The Evening News on July 1: ‘Governor George H. Earle of Pennsylvania and Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring this afternoon addressed more than 2,000 aged veterans of the Blue and Gray at the formal opening of exercises commemorating the 75th anniversary of the battle that was the turning point in the Civil War.’</p><p><br /></p><p> On Sunday, July 3, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Eternal Peace Light Memorial. One Union and one Confederate veteran unveiled the memorial.</p><p><br /></p><p> The Evening News published photos of the events every day - including a photo of Susie Bell Bolton, 81, from Dallas, Texas. She attended the reunion of Civil War soldiers with Thomas Rains, a former Texas Ranger, and wrote a poem about the event. According to the newspaper she was a ‘self-styled poet laureate.’</p><p><br /></p><p> This is the poem:</p><p><br /></p><p>‘It was seventy-five years ago</p><p><br /></p><p>In this little Gettysburg town</p><p><br /></p><p>That a terrible battle was fought</p><p><br /></p><p>And the Southern cause went down.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now our President is giving a party</p><p><br /></p><p>We think he's a very fine man</p><p><br /></p><p>He tells us to be good neighbors</p><p><br /></p><p>And love every one we can.</p><p><br /></p><p>The North and South are reunited</p><p><br /></p><p>We have come from near and far</p><p><br /></p><p>To join our hands in friendship</p><p><br /></p><p>And hoping for no more war</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1020376[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Image of the Peace Light dedication ceremonies on July 3, 1863 (<i>sic</i>). The Pennsylvania Highway Patrol estimated that 250,000 people attended the ceremonies, and another 100,000 people were stuck on the roads coming into town and couldn’t make it in time. At the beginning of the broadcast, the radio announcer on the video clip we are providing estimated 75,000 people were in attendance. By the end of the broadcast he estimated the crowd at 150,000. The smaller tent on the right (west) of the monument covered the speaker’s stand. The larger tent to the west covered the dignitaries, including the approximately 1800 veterans who attended the ceremony. <i>Courtesy of The Adams County (PA) Historical Society.</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>More to come.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="leeg, post: 3849055, member: 17073"]Next part: “They came by train like specters of a bygone era. The year was 1938, the average age of the boys in blue and gray was ninety-three, and the 75th anniversary of the battle marked the last great reunion of Union and Confederate veterans on the hallowed fields of Gettysburg. Just over 10,000 veterans of the War Between the States were still alive, representing the last direct links to the four pivotal years that shaped our nation. As this number grew fewer each year, these soldiers and the stories they possessed, faded from living memory into the annals of an ever-changing world. But from June 29th to July 6th, the memories of 1,845 old soldiers came together at Gettysburg. The wounds from America’s most terrible conflict were by no means healed by 1938. Sectional and racial divides still ran deep. Several veterans declined their invitations, animosity from a lifetime ago still fresh in their minds. Commissioners had difficulty convincing both the United Confederate Veterans and the Grand Army of the Republic to attend. However, the story of those who refused to come is not the story that survived the test of time. Instead, the stories remembered from the 75th anniversary were elderly soldiers in dusty uniforms shaking hands over the stone wall. The story of two veterans, one from the North and the other from the South, helping President Franklin Roosevelt dedicate a monument to peace. Stories like that of ninety-three year old Confederate veteran William H. Freeman, of Wetumka, Oklahoma, who explained to a reporter, ‘We’re here to bury the hatchet and forget all about that little fus,’ and his companion, a Union veteran who sentimentally replied, ‘We’ve done that long ago.’ This was a reunion during which every veteran received both a Union and a Confederate flag. To those who attended, this reunion was about nostalgia, and brotherhood, and the glory of a shared martial past. However, for as many veterans declined their invitations due to residual bitterness, many more declined due to poor health. Over 2,000 invitations were returned bearing the word ‘deceased.’ Three more soldiers would reach the reunion, but not make it back home. Every veteran arrived with an attendant, and a small army of Boy Scouts and Pennsylvania National Guardsman were enlisted to help the veterans navigate the reunion. Wheelchairs, buses, and hospitals were prepared, and the commissioners did all they could to ensure the comfort of these aged warriors. As these soldiers lived out their twilight years, they watched their world change. The United States had grown, faced and overcome new crises, and been catapulted onto a world’s stage. The veterans’ reunion was accompanied with sights such as tanks rolling down the streets of Gettysburg and air shows over the fields where the boys in blue and gray had met a lifetime ago. The world was on the cusp of a new and terrifying conflict, one that would shape another generation. Many of the Boy Scouts and the Guardsmen pushing the veterans’ wheelchairs in 1938 would fight their own war in 1941. Even fewer Civil War veterans would live to see the end of America’s next conflict. They were sometimes seen as curiosities, living museum pieces, and men who belonged to an unknowable past. Their chapter had reached its final page, and a return to Gettysburg was an appropriate end to the story. The veterans themselves seemed to recognize this, for near the end of their final reunion, some petitioned the government to allow them to “remain here on this hallowed hill till Gabriel shall call us to that eternal party where there is no strife, bitter hate, nor bloodshed and we are one for all and all for one.”[B]3[/B] [B]3.[/B] [B][I]All Roads Led to Gettysburg[/I]: [I]The 75th Anniversary[/I], by Becky Oakes, 2013.[/B] [ATTACH=full]1020375[/ATTACH] [B]Courtesy of DCW on the PCGS Coin Forum.[/B] “Return of the Blue and the Gray. On June 28, 1938, more than 2,000 veterans began arriving in Gettysburg, headed to [URL='https://www.nps.gov/gett/index.htm']Gettysburg National Military Park. [/URL]July 1, 2, 3, 4 1938, the official celebration of the Blue and the Gray who reunited in 1938 for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg began. Most were in their 80s and 90s, staying in two encampments and were ‘given the greatest care and attention’ with dispensaries and first-aid scattered throughout the camp. According to The Evening News that day, James Robert Paul of Charlotte, N.C., 105, said he was ‘the oldest Democrat in the country.’ He arrived in Gettysburg ‘as chipper as a lark.’ Paul was the only surviving member of Gen. Stonewall Jackson's 42nd Infantry, Company K. The veterans were in town for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Many were in wheelchairs or used canes. They held a reunion for two days before the four-day anniversary celebration. Two died before it was over. United States Regular Army soldiers camped there, too. They assisted the veterans. The Evening News on June 29 printed this large headline – ‘GETTYSBURG 'TAKEN' BY VETERANS.’ From The Evening News on July 1: ‘Governor George H. Earle of Pennsylvania and Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring this afternoon addressed more than 2,000 aged veterans of the Blue and Gray at the formal opening of exercises commemorating the 75th anniversary of the battle that was the turning point in the Civil War.’ On Sunday, July 3, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Eternal Peace Light Memorial. One Union and one Confederate veteran unveiled the memorial. The Evening News published photos of the events every day - including a photo of Susie Bell Bolton, 81, from Dallas, Texas. She attended the reunion of Civil War soldiers with Thomas Rains, a former Texas Ranger, and wrote a poem about the event. According to the newspaper she was a ‘self-styled poet laureate.’ This is the poem: ‘It was seventy-five years ago In this little Gettysburg town That a terrible battle was fought And the Southern cause went down. Now our President is giving a party We think he's a very fine man He tells us to be good neighbors And love every one we can. The North and South are reunited We have come from near and far To join our hands in friendship And hoping for no more war [ATTACH=full]1020376[/ATTACH] [B]Image of the Peace Light dedication ceremonies on July 3, 1863 ([I]sic[/I]). The Pennsylvania Highway Patrol estimated that 250,000 people attended the ceremonies, and another 100,000 people were stuck on the roads coming into town and couldn’t make it in time. At the beginning of the broadcast, the radio announcer on the video clip we are providing estimated 75,000 people were in attendance. By the end of the broadcast he estimated the crowd at 150,000. The smaller tent on the right (west) of the monument covered the speaker’s stand. The larger tent to the west covered the dignitaries, including the approximately 1800 veterans who attended the ceremony. [I]Courtesy of The Adams County (PA) Historical Society.[/I][/B] More to come.[/QUOTE]
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1938 Battle of Gettysburg 75th Blue/Grey Reunion.
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