00:09 - Did you know you can learn

00:11 - about the Battle of Gettysburg by going on guided tours of the actual battlefield?

00:16 - Our guests from the Gettysburg National Military Park

00:19 - called these educational hikes.

00:21 - Battle walks.

00:23 - We're joined by Chief of Interpretation and Education

00:27 - Christopher Gwin and lead ranger Dan Welch.

00:30 - Welcome to our program.

00:33 - Thank you. Thanks for having us.

00:34 - Before we get into battle, Ox fellers, let's put the battle itself into context.

00:39 - What makes the Battle of Gettysburg?

00:42 - Important and worthy of study?

00:44 - That's a great question, Larry.

00:46 - So the Battle of Gettysburg occurs about two years

00:48 - into the American Civil War, and and you really have

00:50 - to battle of superlatives, right?

00:52 - So it's one of the largest battles of the American Civil War.

00:55 - It's certainly one of the more costly battles.

00:57 - We have about 51,000

00:59 - men that are going to be killed, wounded, missing in that and that fight.

01:03 - It happens in the state of Pennsylvania, which is,

01:06 - unusual in the American Civil War in that it takes place in the North.

01:10 - And so that makes it makes it unique.

01:12 - And, you know, really, the Battle of Gettysburg

01:14 - is one of the turning points of the American Civil War, one of many.

01:17 - But it's a turning point where the tide, the course,

01:20 - the trajectory of American history changes with the victory of the United States

01:24 - Army there.

01:25 - Now, tell me more about who was fighting and what was at stake.

01:28 - Sure.

01:29 - So in the summer of 1863, Robert E Lee is the commander of the Army of Northern

01:33 - Virginia, the principal Confederate army in the eastern theater of the Civil War.

01:38 - A Lee's army is riding high from a string of victories over the past year.

01:43 - Under his tenure as commander of that Confederate army

01:46 - and with a whole host of objectives and riding on that high morale,

01:50 - Lee receives the green light from Confederate President Jefferson Davis

01:54 - to take his army out of Virginia.

01:55 - In the summer of 1863, into Maryland, into Pennsylvania.

02:00 - On the other side of the coin, we have the Army's Potomac.

02:02 - Commanding at this point is a man by the name of Joseph Hooker.

02:06 - He's not the first or second or third or fourth commander

02:10 - of the Army of the Potomac.

02:11 - President Lincoln in Washington, DC, is looking for a battlefield commander

02:16 - that can deliver a victory

02:17 - for this important Union army in the eastern theater of the Civil War.

02:21 - Now, hooker will be replaced during the weeks leading up to the Battle

02:25 - of Gettysburg

02:26 - and taking over from command of the Army of the Potomac,

02:28 - because a man by the name of George Gordon Meade.

02:31 - Although born in Cadiz, Spain, Meade is, a rear just outside of Philadelphia, here

02:36 - in the state of Pennsylvania, and Lincoln believes that Meade

02:39 - will be able to deliver this much sought after battlefield victory against the

02:45 - famous, Robert E Lee and the infamous Army of Northern Virginia.

02:50 - So let's explore political conditions here in the United States.

02:53 - Back in 1863, and there were only 35 states, right?

02:57 - That's correct. Yeah. It really

03:00 - you're talking

03:00 - about a country that had been fractured

03:03 - over a variety of issues, mainly American slavery,

03:07 - Confederate or southern states secede in 1860 and 1861.

03:11 - And the goal of the United States Army, through much of the Civil War, actually,

03:15 - most of it is simply to to restore the Union, bring the Union back together.

03:18 - But by this point, in the summer of 1863, Abraham Lincoln

03:22 - has issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

03:24 - So now this, this war of which Gettysburg is going to be, you know,

03:28 - a pivotal battle is not just about saving an old country,

03:32 - an old nation in many ways, it's about creating a new one.

03:34 - And so the United States victory at Gettysburg,

03:38 - along with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, because Abraham Lincoln will travel

03:41 - to Gettysburg in November of 1863 to help consecrate

03:45 - and dedicate a new national cemetery on the battlefield,

03:48 - will use the words of the Gettysburg Address to, I think, try to put into it,

03:52 - put into words

03:54 - what's at stake in the American Civil War and what we kind of believe

03:57 - in as Americans.

03:58 - So again, when we're talking about the Battle of Gettysburg, it's really

04:01 - one of the the pivotal battles of the American Civil War, certainly.

04:05 - But one of the defining moments in American history.

04:08 - So, gentlemen, we have you here to talk about Battle Walk.

04:11 - So, tell our viewers

04:13 - who are acquainted with battle walks just what exactly is a battle walk?

04:17 - Just tell them in plain language. Sure, sure.

04:19 - Let me let me start by talking a little bit about how visitors can visit

04:23 - the battlefield first. Right.

04:25 - So I think and maybe, Dan, you can chime in. Sure.

04:27 - When visitors go to Gettysburg, when most visitors go to Gettysburg,

04:32 - we have about a million visitors who come here every year.

04:34 - A lot of them don't know what to expect.

04:36 - They're thinking, oh,

04:37 - this might be a nice little country park and, you know, maybe a monument or two.

04:42 - What they find when they arrive here, though, is a battlefield park.

04:45 - It's 7000 acres.

04:47 - There's 40 miles of park tour roads.

04:50 - It's this really substantial place.

04:53 - It's this really substantial place.

04:55 - And the Park service has set up, what we call the auto tour,

05:00 - which is our attempts to get visitors through the battlefield

05:04 - and, you know, 2 to 3 hours. And it's really a road based tour.

05:06 - So you're in your car,

05:08 - or maybe you're in your bus with your license, battlefield guide,

05:11 - and you're getting kind of this comprehensive

05:13 - overview of the Battle of Gettysburg, roughly in chronological order,

05:18 - what we try to do, dad and myself and the team

05:21 - that we have in the National Park Service is to,

05:25 - beyond that experience, provide opportunities for visitors

05:29 - to engage with the battlefield that are that are different.

05:32 - Might be a hike, might be a talk, it might be a walk.

05:35 - We lead out in the battlefield,

05:37 - the battle walks that, you know, there probably are most.

05:40 - But yeah, they're probably our most popular walk,

05:42 - at least among a certain kind of a certain type of visitor

05:45 - that's really interested in the story of the Battle of Gettysburg.

05:49 - Or they want something more than that kind of standard.

05:51 - I'm going I'm going to drive around the park experience,

05:55 - because what the battle walks offer is something very, very different.

05:58 - Maybe. Dan, you want to go into that a little bit?

06:00 - Yeah.

06:01 - You know, this battle that's fought between July

06:03 - 1st and third, 1863 sees 150,000 participants

06:07 - north and south across this vast landscape that Chris has mentioned.

06:11 - And so these battle walks are an opportunity to take just a handful

06:16 - of those 150,000 individual stories and bring these visitors

06:20 - to these places on the landscape where these stories occur.

06:25 - It's an opportunity to connect with the battlefield

06:29 - as a resource and connect with it, and a much deeper and meaningful way.

06:33 - And to remove the idea of these large numbers of of men here

06:40 - and these large numbers of casualties into individuals

06:43 - and individuals who lived in a very pivotal time in our history,

06:47 - and to share those stories and those deeper connections

06:50 - with visitors by, hiking these particular places.

06:54 - Let's get into the physical aspect of it, Dan,

06:56 - because as Chris already pointed out, you have a lot of real estate there.

07:00 - We do, about 7000 acres of battlefield,

07:03 - which provides us an ample opportunity to share many of these stories.

07:08 - So, you know, we could be, walking with visitors, in the footsteps of,

07:14 - Confederate or Union units that fought in open fields,

07:18 - such as the famed wheat field on the battlefield.

07:21 - We could be taking them through, high ground, of famous peach orchards

07:26 - along very well known roads and Gettysburg on the Emmitsburg Road.

07:30 - We could be leading folks up rocky and rugged hills, famous

07:35 - to military history, such as Little Round Top and Culp's Hill.

07:38 - So, you know, these battle walks are taking visitors

07:42 - across these unique landscapes to American military history

07:46 - in the Battle of Gettysburg as well, and historical records

07:48 - then permit that you have, with some accuracy, the ability to walk

07:53 - in the footsteps of these soldiers.

07:55 - I'm sure that's important to your visitors

07:57 - to know that they're walking over the actual ground.

07:59 - Yeah, I think first off, we're very fortunate at Gettysburg

08:03 - and that, you know, when we go to create some of these programs, each battle walks,

08:08 - we have a lot of material we can pull from.

08:10 - We have a lot of letters and diaries and all kinds of records

08:14 - that have been left behind.

08:15 - And so when we're creating a walk, one of the first things we do is we go

08:19 - and we we look at all the what we call primary sources.

08:23 - We look at all those things.

08:24 - And that helps us to kind of build out that narrative.

08:27 - But but you're right, there are a lot of people

08:30 - that I think want to connect with, with this event and with this story

08:34 - in a way that's a bit more intimate

08:37 - than simply driving around on the Park Avenue.

08:40 - And these battle walks, as Dan was talking

08:42 - about, are designed to take you off the pavement

08:44 - and into the landscape that the battle was fought on.

08:47 - I read, a statistic that of all the visitors that go to the Grand Canyon,

08:52 - but millions of people every year that go to the Grand Canyon

08:56 - about 3% actually go into the canyon itself.

08:59 - So they leave the, you know, the edge,

09:00 - and they hike down the trails into the Grand Canyon.

09:03 - And, you know, our battle walks, I think are kind of the same thing to a degree.

09:07 - And that we're going to take you from the park road

09:11 - into the actual landscape, the peach orchard,

09:14 - the wheat fields, the ridges, the woods where the battle was fought

09:18 - and that's a kind of a place based way to connect visitors with the past.

09:22 - Because you're there, you're standing there,

09:25 - you're following in the footsteps of, you know, the soldier from Ohio

09:28 - or this this Confederate, lieutenant from Virginia.

09:31 - I think it helps to make the whole thing real.

09:33 - Well, let's explore that for a minute, Chris.

09:35 - In other words, how much weight do you put on the fighting itself versus

09:38 - putting the weight on the individuals, who were involved?

09:43 - Well, I think you balance it.

09:44 - You balance it right?

09:46 - When we bring a group out, you know,

09:48 - I think we want visitors to understand the decisions that shape the battle.

09:53 - We want visitors to understand, okay, what's this all about?

09:55 - What's happening here?

09:57 - And that's a great way to, I think, provide a foundational level of knowledge.

10:01 - But at least my experience and maybe Dan can can talk about this too.

10:06 - My experience is more than anything, what people connect with,

10:10 - what they remember when they go home are stories of people like them.

10:15 - And so whatever we do on the battlefield, I mean, we're always trying

10:18 - to incorporate those stories because one, it helps people relate to the battle.

10:23 - But two, you know, battles aren't they're not fought by lines on a map.

10:27 - They're not fought by,

10:28 - you know, these these miscellaneous units are fought by people like you and me.

10:32 - And so being able to go in the battlefield to where these people fought,

10:34 - tell their story.

10:36 - And, you know, we might be reading an account,

10:38 - or Dan might be reading an account of a soldier writing

10:40 - about how he saw this stone wall, and then he saw this ridge.

10:43 - And when you're out there, you can see the stone wall, you can see the ridge.

10:46 - So it takes something that's very kind of two dimensional

10:49 - and makes it three dimensional. I think that's what our walks do.

10:51 - Now that you mentioned the stone wall, how many physical reminders

10:54 - are out there in the battle that the visitors can connect to?

10:58 - There's a lot

10:59 - to connect to on the Gettysburg Battlefield landscape, and

11:03 - you can connect to it in various areas, if you will, of preservation.

11:08 - So from the earliest parts of the battlefield that were purchased

11:11 - in the weeks, months and years after the battle was over,

11:15 - and having some of those features, such as stone walls preserved and fence lines

11:19 - preserved and orchards preserved to the commemorative era,

11:23 - when veterans begin to return back to the battlefield and place

11:27 - monuments and markers to where their units participated in combat, or where

11:32 - individuals important to their units may have been wounded or killed.

11:37 - And then there are the additions to the landscape

11:41 - that various organizations over the years,

11:44 - from the United States War Department to the National Park Service

11:47 - have placed on that landscape to help explain that larger narrative,

11:51 - and story of the battle to visitors through all generations.

11:55 - And so throughout those various, different periods of the park's history

12:00 - and the battlefields history, there's ample opportunity for visitors

12:04 - to find something that they can connect to and that might interest them.

12:08 - At the same time, after 150 years, the landscape, of course, has changed.

12:13 - How desirable or practical is it to restore

12:15 - the battle field to its original appearance

12:20 - in the Park Service?

12:21 - We really we don't use that word restore because that denotes

12:25 - a very specific thing.

12:26 - So when you talk about restoring something so imagine, you have an antique piece

12:31 - of furniture and, we're going to, we're going to restore it.

12:35 - That's the real piece of furniture that's original.

12:38 - And so we have something that we can physically

12:41 - improve on and take back.

12:44 - As you were mentioning this, Dan was mentioning, there's battlefields

12:46 - been through constant change, constant evolution for 162 years.

12:52 - And it's going to be impossible for us, for a variety of reasons,

12:57 - to restore it to exactly how it would have looked at the time of the battle.

13:01 - And so we use a word that's very close to it called rehabilitate.

13:04 - So we're going to rehabilitate the battle.

13:06 - So we're not going to restore it

13:07 - because we can never bring it back to that, that state.

13:12 - And then you can get into the weeds really and talk

13:14 - about what you're going to restore to June 30th.

13:16 - You're going to restore it to July 3rd.

13:17 - I mean, because it's markedly different.

13:20 - So we use the word rehabilitate.

13:22 - And, you know, we know a lot about the battlefield.

13:24 - We have a lot of maps.

13:25 - We have a lot of damage claims from the people who lived here.

13:29 - We have a lot of accounts,

13:30 - and we've taken the battlefield and we've tried to denote

13:34 - on that battlefield every feature that was important to how the battle was fought.

13:38 - Right.

13:38 - So it might be a fence line, it might be an orchard, it might be a woodlot.

13:42 - And over the course of 162 years, I mean, things change.

13:46 - But what we want to do is rehabilitate the landscape, return

13:51 - those features that were important to how the battle was fought

13:54 - as best as we can to rehabilitate the battlefield

13:57 - so visitors can get a better understanding of how the battlefield looked.

14:00 - It's not the same fence line,

14:02 - it's the same kind of fence line, but it's not the same fence line.

14:06 - You know, we have an orchard over here and we pretty sure the orchard was there

14:09 - might not be the same kind of apple tree, but it's still an orchard.

14:12 - So that's why we use that word rehabilitate.

14:14 - We can never bring back the original.

14:16 - We're going to try to approximate those key features on the landscape

14:19 - so that you can make, you know, you can understand how the battle was fought.

14:24 - Well, let's say there's a clump of trees that wasn't there.

14:28 - Have you gone in and gone in and simply cut down those trees

14:32 - in order to approximate the view that soldiers had back then?

14:35 - Yeah, over the past.

14:37 - Talk down. Rehabilitate.

14:38 - However you want to put those cutting down as part of rehabilitating,

14:42 - sometimes planting as part of rehabilitating. Absolutely.

14:44 - So, over the past 20, 30 years, the park has gone through this

14:48 - really transformative era where

14:51 - a lot of those features, the wood lots, fields

14:55 - that had been missing, were returned to the landscape.

14:59 - And so in some cases that involved, you know, cutting down

15:02 - a whole bunch of trees to make a field where in 1863 they would have made a,

15:06 - you know, would have been a field

15:07 - in some cases, it means planting trees where there wouldn't have been trees.

15:12 - And so we're at the point now where we've we've done most of that.

15:14 - But the challenge now is keeping up with it,

15:16 - because that that field still wants to be a woodlot.

15:19 - Right.

15:19 - And, you know, we're fortunate.

15:21 - We have an amazing battlefield park.

15:23 - We have people that care deeply about this place, from the farmers that,

15:28 - you know, rent out our land to plant crops to the volunteers that come in

15:31 - to help build fences and pull weeds, which not be doing, you know, every year,

15:36 - we have a host of volunteer opportunities, so they help us.

15:40 - But it's a real challenge.

15:42 - Dan, and your experience,

15:43 - what themes do the best battle walks have in common?

15:48 - Are we talking strategy or maybe even unexpected

15:51 - consequences or charismatic leaders?

15:55 - You know, I think it's really a combination of those.

15:57 - And even more as as Chris was talking about earlier, it's a way

16:01 - in which we can, you know, connect people with these historical figures.

16:07 - And people often connect to things that they experience in their own

16:11 - everyday modern lives.

16:13 - So, you know,

16:14 - we can always find in our own current life someone we know that's very charismatic.

16:19 - And so we can, you know, perhaps focus one of these battle walk programs

16:22 - on a charismatic leader and what that leader was able

16:25 - to accomplish on the battlefield with his men.

16:29 - We can utilize, leadership lessons

16:32 - we've all had experiences with,

16:35 - you know, positive or negative types of leadership

16:38 - and find those units that illustrate those stories.

16:42 - Or we can connect folks to units that,

16:46 - perhaps represent more of their their daily life back home.

16:50 - For example, you know, we have a Pennsylvania unit

16:53 - that fights at Gettysburg comprised of schoolteachers.

16:57 - You know, there was a lot at stake in this war.

16:59 - So connecting everybody had an experience with a teacher growing up.

17:03 - You know, we had teachers that had a group of school teachers

17:05 - might have a different expectation for going into the war.

17:07 - So I'm interested already. Absolutely.

17:09 - You know, we have this this, unit that includes

17:12 - school teachers from the state of Pennsylvania. They fight on the

17:15 - the first day's battlefield west of the town of Gettysburg.

17:18 - They take grievous losses, during the fighting out there west of town.

17:23 - But, you know, it's another way that we can connect folks in our daily,

17:28 - their daily modern lives to what individuals did back then, from teachers

17:32 - to bankers to different, cultural and ethnic groups

17:36 - that signed up same day, units like the Irish Brigade at Gettysburg.

17:40 - Did. These everyday people have a good grasp

17:43 - on what was actually going to happen when they got into battle?

17:47 - That's a good question.

17:48 - I don't know that we can answer that.

17:49 - I think, you know, you have, in the case the battle of words.

17:52 - Nowadays, we're well acquainted with the consequences of going into battle.

17:55 - But back in 1863, I mean, I think

17:59 - in some cases, yes, in some cases, now,

18:01 - you have 165,000 men that participated in the battle by 1863.

18:06 - Almost everybody who fights at Gettysburg, you know, they're veterans.

18:09 - So they've been and they've been to two years of combat.

18:12 - So they they, I think, have a very clear picture

18:14 - of what this is going to be and what it's going to look like.

18:17 - Now, if you were to jump back to 1861, when the war begins,

18:21 - you have a handful of of men that might have fought in

18:23 - the Mexican-American War in the 1840s.

18:26 - You have, you know, a handful that might have had some previous

18:29 - military experience.

18:30 - So they might have been a bit more realistic in terms

18:34 - of their thought process.

18:36 - Great example would have been William Tecumseh Sherman,

18:38 - who was was very confident the war was going to be bloody and horrific.

18:43 - But you have a lot of individuals that at the beginning of the war,

18:46 - you know, they think it's going to be a great adventure.

18:49 - It'll be over in 90 days.

18:51 - I'll live, you'll live, somebody else will die, and then we'll win.

18:54 - We'll all go home as heroes.

18:56 - So there was definitely, I think, a glamorized

18:59 - picture of what, what the actuality of combat was going to be like.

19:03 - No one's operating under those misconceptions by the time of the battle,

19:06 - and not just the soldiers in the ranks, but the homefront as well.

19:10 - Those romanticized, views of war.

19:13 - As the country delves into this conflict in the spring of 1861.

19:19 - Those romanticized views of war also also begin to fade.

19:23 - By the summer of 1863, the never ending list of casualties

19:28 - in the hometown newspapers, soldiers that have been wounded

19:31 - and maimed in combat, that are now returning home,

19:34 - and particularly, the advent of photography

19:39 - and photographing the dead on battlefields, leading up to the Battle

19:43 - of Gettysburg, famous battlefields such as Antietam in the fall of 1862.

19:48 - So now the home front as well, has lost that

19:52 - that, that romanticized,

19:54 - knowledge or notion of war, even a sense of innocence.

19:58 - A sense of innocence. Absolutely.

20:00 - And so by the time of Gettysburg, both the soldiers on the field and those

20:05 - at the homefront know what the stakes are of each subsequent engagement.

20:10 - Now, what happens on battle walks?

20:12 - I'm just very curious about either a good idea of what goes on.

20:15 - You have a group of visitors, you have the ranger leading the way, talks

20:19 - for a while, and one location.

20:20 - Then you move on to another location.

20:22 - These visitors, have questions?

20:25 - I'm sure they do, and some are probably more vocal and interactive than others.

20:29 - So tell me what kind of things you've heard out.

20:31 - And I know

20:32 - both of you have your share of experience on the battlefield of hearing

20:35 - from visitors, and you probably have your own techniques for handling them to.

20:39 - Wow. Yeah.

20:40 - You know, first of all, I love questions.

20:43 - Questions are good.

20:44 - I there maybe some questions show more sympathy for the South

20:48 - than the North, for example. Or the other way around.

20:51 - Well, sure, sure.

20:54 - What I would say the first thing

20:56 - I think when Dan and I are other staff, when we're thinking about, okay,

20:59 - we're going to go do this hike, we're going to make this battle walk, right.

21:02 - One of the first things we do is at least

21:05 - what I do is I try to pick a topic that I'm interested in, right.

21:08 - That resonates with me

21:09 - because I think that kind of enthusiasm for the subject matter makes it better.

21:13 - And what do you lean towards, Chris?

21:15 - Tell us what makes a Chris walk distinctive in its own way.

21:19 - Well, I mean, I don't know.

21:21 - You're attracted to certain things.

21:23 - Maybe it's leaders, maybe it's common people.

21:25 - Or, as I was saying earlier, unexpected consequences that interest me.

21:30 - You know, I,

21:31 - I think one of the

21:33 - wonderful things about working at Gettysburg is people love it, right?

21:37 - People love it.

21:38 - There's a there's a real appetite for the the programing

21:41 - that we do and the history which is, which is wonderful.

21:44 - I've worked at places where that wasn't the case.

21:47 - So again, I try to find something that

21:50 - that appeals to me, and I'm always trying to find something.

21:53 - What can I say that's different?

21:55 - What can I say that's new?

21:56 - What can I what experience maybe can I give visitors

21:59 - that they didn't have with with another battle walk?

22:03 - And you're sure that's got to be a challenge?

22:05 - Has to.

22:06 - Oh, it's an absolute yes.

22:07 - Absolute challenge.

22:09 - You know,

22:10 - maybe you'll come up with a different story,

22:11 - but maybe it's not worthy of talking about.

22:13 - Well, I think so. I think everything

22:17 - with the Battle of Gettysburg

22:19 - is worthy of discussion, at least for people like Dan and I.

22:22 - You know, we genuinely love what we do and we love the topic.

22:26 - And I think that's why, you know, 300, 400 people will come on these walks with us

22:30 - because they they're fascinated by every facet of this battle.

22:35 - But again, I try to I try to pick something that is

22:37 - that is new, to tell a story

22:38 - that maybe hasn't been told before is as tough as that might be.

22:42 - Or I try to present it in a way that's,

22:45 - a little bit different or that's unique or that helps visitors

22:49 - visualize maybe what, what it would have looked like.

22:54 - And as impossible away as I can, given, you know,

22:57 - you never want to go back and show them what battle

22:58 - actually looks like, but help them to visualize the battle.

23:01 - You know, we've done programing in the past with with living historians.

23:04 - So I know, Dan, you're going to do one this year.

23:06 - So that's a way to change it up.

23:09 - Okay.

23:09 - Well, in other words, they portray characters from the battle

23:12 - and you say living historian. Is that what you mean?

23:14 - Well, what I mean is they portray units that participated in the battle.

23:19 - So I'll give you a not individuals.

23:21 - No, not necessarily individuals.

23:22 - I'll give you a real world example.

23:24 - Few years ago, we worked with a group of living historians to do a battle walk

23:29 - focused around one Union regiment, and it was the first Minnesota.

23:34 - And we worked with this group called the Liberty Rifles.

23:36 - And they went out and they got the exact number of men

23:40 - that that regiment had, that unit had on July 2nd, second day of the battle.

23:44 - So when we're out in the battlefield and I tell visitors, you know, imagine

23:48 - what these 200 men might have looked like as they move through the landscape.

23:53 - Well, it's a heck of a lot easier to do that when you actually have 200 men

23:58 - with, you know, a great degree of authenticity moving through the landscape.

24:02 - So that's something that we hadn't really done before.

24:04 - Dan's working with them again this year on a different kind of program.

24:07 - Same general idea, though.

24:09 - And the authenticity is important.

24:12 - Oh, it's very important. It's important to me.

24:14 - And I think, you know, in the National Park Service,

24:18 - especially at Gettysburg,

24:19 - I think we try to set a pretty high bar for ourselves

24:22 - in the quality of the programing,

24:24 - the quality of the content, the people that we work with.

24:27 - And so Gettysburg is the kind of place where details are important,

24:31 - and we want to present a museum quality

24:34 - experience to people, even when they're out on the battlefield.

24:38 - So when you go into the museum, you know, the curatorial conditions are right.

24:41 - The the object placement is professionally done.

24:44 - It's really well crafted and curated.

24:46 - I want them to have the same quality experience out in the battlefield with Dan

24:50 - and myself as they get in the Smithsonian or in our museum in Gettysburg.

24:55 - Now, I'm sure some of our viewers who have never been on a battle walk

24:58 - heard what you said a few minutes ago, Chris, that sometimes 300 to 400 people,

25:03 - not 50, 300 or 400 people go on a battle walk.

25:07 - It must be a challenge in order to move that many people around.

25:11 - It's like an army within itself.

25:12 - And importantly, you got to make yourself heard.

25:16 - Absolutely.

25:16 - You know, and those are the skills that come to us, from some very early

25:22 - National Park Service principals in what we call the field of interpretation.

25:26 - And that's, you know, taking the the primary sources

25:30 - that Chris talked about, taking that research and taking it out

25:33 - onto a landscape and sharing that information

25:37 - and a knowledgeable and professional and meaningful way

25:41 - that will hopefully, you know, transform that visitor's experience

25:45 - into one that makes them want to be future stewards of that site.

25:49 - And so, you're right, three, 400 people on a landscape

25:53 - and in hot weather or rainy weather, can be a challenge.

25:58 - But I think as as Chris talked earlier, you know, about the the interest

26:02 - level of people coming to Gettysburg, that that excitement is palpable.

26:06 - And so, you know, the desire to keep up as we go through from stop,

26:11 - to stop the desire to, to, you know, stick it out in the 90 degree heat or,

26:16 - not being worried about getting wet for two hours, in a driving rainstorm.

26:21 - All in an effort to connect with our past

26:24 - some viewers watching this show right now are thinking, hey, that sounds good.

26:27 - I like to go in something like that, so let's help them along.

26:30 - In other words, let's provide him some tips,

26:32 - in order to maximize their experience and have fun.

26:36 - Well, certainly, you're going to want to dress for the weather.

26:39 - And you're going to prepare for the weather as well.

26:42 - We always recommend sturdy walking shoes or boots.

26:45 - We recommend, you know, on those hot summer days,

26:48 - sunscreen and insect repellent.

26:51 - We are moving through, not a static environment where you know,

26:55 - moving through these landscapes,

26:57 - that have been rehabilitated to ways to look back to their 1863 experience.

27:02 - So you may be going through a wood lot or a tall meadow field

27:06 - or an orchard, at the same point in time, you know, we recommend you take those,

27:11 - those other precautions, know yourself,

27:15 - know your limits as you go on these programs.

27:18 - But most importantly, you know, prepare for an incredible experience

27:24 - that's that's hard to find elsewhere.

27:26 - We only have about a minute left, gentlemen.

27:28 - So, Chris, I'm going to put this last question to you.

27:31 - People may be tempted.

27:32 - Your visitors may be tempted to stay in the visitor center

27:35 - at Gettysburg Park because it's, very nice and has comfortable air conditioned.

27:39 - So how can you encourage them to get out of that experience

27:43 - and to get outside that box, so to speak, and explore?

27:46 - Battleblock I think the so the battlefield and the museum, they work together

27:52 - and you can get the most out of your visit to Gettysburg when you do both.

27:56 - So start at the visitor center, watch the film, go through the museum.

28:01 - You know, take all that in because it's excellent.

28:05 - But what that's going to do is that when you go out on the battlefield

28:09 - and you learn about the learn about the battle,

28:11 - everything's going to make much more sense.

28:13 - You're going to have a much more meaningful experience

28:16 - and know the visitor center is great.

28:19 - We got wonderful partners.

28:20 - We got great air conditioning.

28:22 - But at the end of the day, this park was established because of the battlefield.

28:27 - So again, it'd be like going to the Grand Canyon and never leaving the parking lot.

28:31 - It'd be like going to Disney World and never leaving your hotel.

28:35 - The battlefields.

28:36 - Why we exist.

28:36 - So no visit to Gettysburg is complete without going out

28:39 - and seeing the actual park.

28:41 - However you want to do it is fine with Dan and I.

28:44 - The licensed guides are great.

28:45 - The bus tours are wonderful, the hikes are great.

28:48 - But go out and see the battlefields.

28:50 - Our guests have been, Chief of Interpretation and education

28:53 - Christopher Gwynn and lead ranger Dan Welch.

28:58 - Thanks for joining us. Thank you.