These archive photos from 1913 show Gettysburg veterans returning to the bloodiest battlefield of...

I love going to reenactments, that would have been something to see men who were actually there at the time.

Horrible losses!

That battle shouldn’t have happened. General Lee was trying to bypass Washington and wheel his formations to the north and west to attack Union forces from an unexpected direction, from the north. But his supply lines were stretched too thin to sustain a major engagement so deep behind enemy lines. The battle raged for three days but the outcome was never really in doubt. The Confederate troops fought valiantly but couldn’t sustain a prolonged battle in the face of withering artillery fire. Most of the casualties on both sides were caused by shrapnel and blade weapons - bayonet and saber. Such fighting would have been brutal at close quarters with fallen horses adding to the confusion and entangling troopers’ feet and legs. It’s a wonder anyone survived. Union dead were collected almost immediately and taken to Alexandria Virginia where burials were conducted on the grounds of General Lee’s plantation. Confederate dead were left to rot on the field until a group of ladies in Washington organized a recovery effort to bring them to Alexandria to join the graves of their opponents.