Day 9

Our kids are such troopers. I took down - word-for-word what Ryan shared today. He was so excited about the last two battlefields we visited...that he just talked about that today...and Allison will report about our visit to Amish country today and tomorrow - on Day 10! Here's Ryan's report:
On Monday, we went to Antietam and learned about General Burnside and what he did. He tried to get over a bridge and it took 4 hours as 500 people were defending the bridge on the other side. When the 500 men lost ammunition, they fled and General Burnside took two more hours dawdling and setting up his troops. He then went to attack General Robert E. Lee. Just then A.P. Hill’s troops came in but were really hungry and they just marched 17 miles. When they came, they attacked General Burnside and Burnside retreated. The hair on the side of our face was named side-burns after General Burnside.

Today, we went to the Gettysburg National Military Park. We saw a movie about Gettysburg. The Union troops were on Cemetery Ridge and Culps Hill. There were two more ridges called Little Round Top and Big Round Top. Big Round Top was really rough (rocky and lots of trees) so they did not go there. They forgot about Little Round Top.
The Confederates wanted to put a canon on Little Round Top to shoot the Union off of Cemetery Hill. One of the Confederate Generals marched to LRT and he stopped for camp and said he would take it in the morning. One of Union officers went and found out that the Confederates were going to take LRT so he took some Union troops there to defend it. When the Confederate General came and attacked LRT, the Union kept them back. When the Union troops ran out of ammunition, then they started fighting with their bayonettes. Then later, when the Confederates were weak, General Lee told General Picket to attack Cemetery Ridge. General Longstreet said it was a bad idea and suggested going around to attack. General Lee told Picket to charge…he attacked with 12,000 of his best men and broke through. He retreated and lost 7,000 men during that charge. When he came back, he had around 5,000 troops. Then they went to a river but it was flooded and they could not retreat. Union General George Meade did not attack General Robert E. Lee but General Lee defended his camp really well to keep away attack. General Lee went back to Virginia and was safe. This was the first victory for the Union.

Ryan standing just above where the 500 Confederate soldiers held off thousands of Union soldiers trying to cross the river.

This is the bridge the Union soldiers tried to cross. Brendan is standing beside the general with the famous facial hair.

So many monuments - this is of the confederates trying to break the Union line on Cemetery Ridge.

Our kids are such a blast...ha ha ha!