Today I attended a picnic near Jefferson, York County, Pennsylvania. It was a cloudy day with temperatures in the low 90s. Hot, but not as sunny and hot as the prior day when thermometers read 100.
Taking a walk down the road I heard what I first thought were distant cracks of thunder. Listening to the patterns I soon realized the noise was not thunder but the roar of a fierce cannon engagement at the Battle of Gettysburg reenactment.
Google Maps says that Gettysburg is 25 miles away so it is probably at least 15 air miles.
This year's reenactment featured about 2000 troops and 22 pieces of cannon. The sound of their firing was loud enough to be heard clearly on a country road a dozen or two away.
The local people of 1863, many of whom had watched over 7,500 troops, of both sides, ride through the nearby countryside - stealing whiskey, horses and food and occasionally burning what they thought needed burned, surely heard the roar of the actual battle over those fateful days in early July 1863.
If a 'mere' 22 cannons made a distant roar, imagine the sound of the battle as over 400 guns (150 Confederate pieces and 230 Union guns) engaged. Surely the locals wondered if the battle was moving towards them as they keenly felt the damage that could be done by 1000s of soldiers simply passing through.
Without aid of telephones, radio or TV they would have had no means of quickly knowing the horrific bloodshed that was going on only a days ride away. As the battle raged on the news would have rippled outward followed by sightings of the battered human beings who pay the highest cost of any armed conflict.
Eerie was the sound I heard today. As if the ghosts of those suffering at the hands of the real guns were carrying the sound of the recreated battle to my ears.
I am glad I was there to hear them.
The image used above can be purchased at the following site:
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