We took the opportunity to visit Gettysburg last month, wow. Maybe it was just me, but when we parked and got out of the car, I actually felt the history and heartbreak there, it was overwhelming. (To be fair, it could have just been the humidity.)
We watched the movie in the visitors center and were a little concerned that it would be too graphic for the boys. We warned them ahead of time that the film may show photographs of dead bodies. The only thing that seemed to upset them was the volume of the music during the movie, but the images themselves only prompted questions which is what we hoped.
Living in mid-Virginia, there is a much different attitude toward the Civil War than there is in Indiana. Seriously the cannons on town squares still point North...I'm not joking. We have friends that come from even further south and Chief and I discovered early-on that, for them, the Civil War had very little to do with slavery. Sure it's not the WHOLE story, but you can't leave it out, either.
So while at Gettysburg we were trying to explain to the boys about the battles and who came from which directions. Union and Confederate, North and South, but what really speaks to that age group of boys....good guys and bad guys. I admit it didn't exactly feel right leaving them with the impression that the Confederates were the "bad guys" but they understand the Civil War to be about slavery...those who wanted it and those who didn't. They don't think about state's rights, they think about human rights.
The biggest hit of the day, was Devil's Den (thanks to my Gettysburg expert, Jen!) Where curiously, I discovered that I am now afraid of heights. But I understand that this is common when you have young children, and may go away after time....
See those 3 figures standing on that rock....that's my family...they are having fun...I'm hyperventilating.
No comments:
Post a Comment