Waterfall and Battlegrounds

Mary and I spent one day at Cunningham Falls in northern Maryland.

A pretty spot but it takes a impressive waterfall to get an Oregonian excited.

Maybe I was less than excited because I was walking around in these shoe.  Cute but not the best choice for hiking to the top of a waterfall.

Since we were almost at the Pennsylvania border we decided to make a quick trip to Gettysburg.  A ranger was just about to start a talk called, "The Battle in a Box" so we listened to that.

The green things on the ground are the various geographical features that influenced the battle, the ropes are the roads, and the people represented various generals and their troops.  Interesting to learn about the little decisions that influenced the outcome of this decisive battle of the War Between the States!  I'm glad I don't have to try and explain it to anyone but it was fun to learn about.

Then we went to the spot where President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.

The place was the military cemetery.

Here is what I recently read about the speech. 

On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner referred to the most famous speech ever given by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called the Gettysburg Address a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."

Here is the speech:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863