Gettysburg 2012

Gettysburg National Military Park

The Troop with Civil War Soldiers
When

April 7-21, 2012

Where

Gettysburg, PA

Attendance

19 Scouts

Activities
  • Hiking
  • Tents
  • Campfire
  • Cooking
Purpose

Over Spring Break we went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We loaded 2 x 15-passenger Vans and an equipment truck Tuesday morning and headed out for the 8 hour drive. We arrived at Camp Tuckahoe in Dillsburg, PA at around 6:00, set up camp at the Susquehanna site. Gettysburg National Military Park and the BSA have created a National Heritage Trail program that allows scouts to earn a medal for completing 5 different hikes and tours that provide a thorough overview of the Battle of Gettysburg and the importance of this battle to the outcome of the Civil War. We completed all of the requirements and every scout received the Gettysburg National Heritage Trail Medal.

Highlights
  • Because of the mix of scouts from patrols we created 2 new patrols for the trip. We had the Debatably Undebatables and the Fist Pumping Penguins
  • Wednesday
    • We toured the Visitor center and Cyclorama
    • We then hiked the Johnny Reb Trail which is a 5 mile hike that focuses on the confederate positions in the battle with many monuments along the way
  • Thursday
    • Thursday we did the Billy Yank trail which was a 10-mile hike around the Union side of the battle
    • We explored little round top and ran into some civil war soldiers there
    • We were pretty tired by the end so we headed over to the Gettysburg YWCA for showers and a swim in the pool
  • Friday
    • Friday we completed the last requirements on the Heritage Trail by exploring the Eisenhower estate and ending with a 4-mile hike through Gettysburg
    • The hike through Gettysburg was fascinating in that there are many buildings still in us that were built before the civil war
    • We saw one house that still had bullet holes in the bricks from Union soldiers shooting at a sniper. Another house had a mortar embedded in the brick wall
    • Along the way we stopped for ice cream which put a smile on everyone’s faces
    • Friday night Camp Tuckahoe let us use the amphitheater for the campfire and it was quite a production. The PLC took care of setting everything up ahead of time so when the rest of the troop arrived there was a great fire going and it was one of the best campfire programs of the year
  • Saturday
    • Before leaving we cleared the area of limbs that had fallen in a storm several months earlier
Photos