"Your Names Are Inscribed On Fames Immortal Scroll"

One of the privileges of my time here at Siena has been attending, twice now, a trip to Gettysburg with my fellow students. The trip is organized and led by John Vallely, one of our librarians and a lecturer on U.S Military History. Each year Mr. Vallely takes students to the Battlefield and explains in detail the history of the battle and the significance underlying the many monuments found throughout the grounds. The stories of the sacrifices of those that fought those fateful days in 1863 were truly moving, and Mr. Vallely did an expert job in making the monuments come alive through his account of the battle.

While I'm a political science and philosophy major, I've always loved History, particularly U.S. History. Last year, when the opportunity presented itself to go to Gettysburg, a place I had never gone to before, I jumped at it. I am so glad I did then, and that I was able to do so again. One cannot go to those grounds, made sacred by the blood shed by tens of thousands of American soldiers, and leave unaffected. There are 1,400 monuments preserving the memory of the battle, but the one that strikes me most is the monument, pictured above, to the North Carolinians that fought for the Confederacy (for another angle, see here. The North Carolina monument, designed by the same fellow that designed Mount Rushmore, depicts the faces of actual men that fought in the battle, forever facing the field where Pickett's Charge occured. Behind the monument reads these moving words "To the eternal glory of the North Carolina soldiers. Who on this battlefield displayed heroism unsurpassed sacrificing all in support of their cause. Their valorous deeds will be enshrined in the hearts of men long after these transient memorials have crumbled into dust."