We came across the mountains of southern Pennsylvania to the town of Gettysburg. In the morning we visited the massive new Visitor's Center with its museum, film and cyclorama which left us with a deepened sense of history and tragedy. We toured a bit of the battlefield and the hundreds of monuments to the regiments, the armies, the men who fought here. The moment seemed particularly fitting, given the election of Obama, and the role the battle and the war played in the end to slavery (not that long ago)and the continuing struggle for freedom. Yet in a more political sense, the war was about "once in, could you leave the union? like, if you don't like the new president...in that case, Lincoln...could you just go bye-bye?" Well, the answer was "No" and it was delivered at places like Gettysburg. And the monuments, like the one above of the muse writing down the names of the dead from a New York regiment, testify to the cost of that "no."
