- [Narrator] This program is made possible by a grant from the Pennsylvania Public Television Network.

The network receives funding from the Commonwealth to provide public television to all Pennsylvanians, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(wind blowing) (gentle fiddle music) - They lost their lives for something they believed in.

- [Narrator] Three days in July of 1863 marked a turning point in the Civil War.

- If it wasn't for this battle, I'm not sure we would have a United States of America.

- [Narrator] There were 50,000 casualties at Gettysburg.

- It makes you remember why we live here, and how lucky we are that they fought for us.

- It's kinda overwhelming just to imagine what went on here.

- [Woman] Their warm spirits and souls, a lot of them are here, I believe.

- [Narrator] After the war, the veterans came back to Gettysburg to mark where their comrades fought and fell.

- They put their monuments up themselves.

They said, "Here's where we fought.

We'll put this monument right in the center of the line, and from now on, hundreds of years, people will know what we did here."

- By looking at the monuments, I feel their stories deep in my heart.

(intense music) - We had a night of really horrendous vandalism.

- It's inexplicable.

- And it broke my heart, because it would've broken their hearts.

- [Narrator] But when vandals and the elements take their toll, when people forget what happened here, there's another army at work, raising money, repairing the monuments, preserving their stories.

- These monuments mean something that the veterans thought was important, that their legacy not be lost.

- So they certainly are more than rock and granite.

- [Narrator] They're all part of Gettysburg's new battle, saving the stone soldiers.

(uplifting music) (drill whirring) - [Vic] My background is that of a sculptor so I have an aesthetic appreciation for them.

I know what it takes to produce a monument, to create a monument.

- [Narrator] And Vic Gavin knows what it takes to destroy one.

- In the 11 years that I've been here at Gettysburg, by far the worst vandalism I've seen.

- [Narrator] Vic is repairing one of three Gettysburg monuments vandalized in February of 2006.

The vandalism made national headlines.

There was a big reward to catch the vandals, but through all that publicity, and all during the police investigation.

- [Vic] Now, that night's acts of vandalism will take years to correct.

- [Narrator] Vic Gavin just keeps working to right someone else's wrong.

On this day, he's fixing a monument to the men who fought and died for the 4th New York Independent Battery.

Somebody tied a rope around the soldier and most likely used a truck to pull him down.

- [Vic] And he was dragged from his pedestal and dragged approximately 160 feet from the monument site.

In this process, the head came loose and was stolen.

I will of course have to replace the head.

We'll have to replace the rammer.

- [Narrator] Vandals also destroyed a monument to the 11th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

- That will have to be re-carved, and there are missing elements.

They stole quite a bit of the stone.

- [Narrator] It might take years to fix that monument, but this soldier's already back on his feet.

- The monument you see behind me was dedicated to the 114th Volunteer Pennsylvania Infantry, also known as the Zouaves.

They were a colorful regiment whose uniform was based on the French Zouave troops.

As you can see, the monument's located very close to the road.

Apparently, the vandals used a fairly heavy vehicle, a heavy pickup, attached a strap or a rope to the monument, pulled the entire bronze feature off the stone pedestal, landed on the fence there and damaged both the fence and the monument.

- [Narrator] As you'd imagine, news of the vandalism outraged Americans, and not for the first time.

During the 1990s, vandals stained 17 monuments by pouring oil on them.

The monuments at Gettysburg have been a target as far back as 1913.

- [Vic] And of course, there were a lot of surviving veterans in 1913.

There was a letter, I've seen a copy of the letter that was written to the park.

- [Narrator] And written in no uncertain terms.

The closing line reads, "We all hope you secure the maniac who injured the monuments.

Unless he was insane, a rope's end would be the proper thing for him."

- So that's how the veterans would have felt about it.

- Why they would want to come and destroy something that...

When they should come pay tribute.

- It's a good question.

Why has there been vandalism ever since there've been human beings?

- [Narrator] And that's why when night falls at Gettysburg, people who care about the monuments volunteer to stand watch.

(intense music) - [John] Ranger on patrol, Park Watch John in service, over.

- [Narrator] This is John Fitzpatrick, reporting for duty.

(radio speaking faintly) - Roger that.

- -[Narrator] John is a corporate attorney by day, Park Watch volunteer by night.

- [John] No, no, this is a strictly volunteer organization.

- [Narrator] On a typical evening, he's on the lookout for people who need help, or need a reminder about closing time.

- And of course we're looking for any criminal activity to alert the Rangers.

Here's an example of vandalism to a cavalry monument.

You can see that the brim has been broken off.

I realize we're dealing with cowards and criminals.

They need to be stopped.

We don't understand why they do it.

They don't have any idea how sacred this ground is.

- [Narrator] What started with a dozen people in 1996 is now more than 100 volunteers strong.

The Park Watch program at Gettysburg now serves as a model for other parks around the country.

- All government services are stretched thin.

The Rangers are stretched thin here.

They know how much they appreciate our help.

(gentle music) We are fortunate enough to be in probably the largest outdoor museum in the world.

There are over 1,320 monuments, markers, tablets here, and they're out here, 24/7, 365, and it's important that they be preserved for everybody to see and to tell the story for everybody who comes here.

- The monuments were actually put up by the veterans themselves.

They actually went to their home towns after the war, they raised their own money, they came out here, they put their monuments up and their flag markers.

And the guys who fought here and who experienced it where the guys who put these monuments here.

- [Narrator] Vic Gavin has much more to deal with than vandals.

He runs the Monument Preservation Branch at Gettysburg.

- Michael and I are gonna work through lunch.

- [Narrator] That means taking care of 1,300 monuments and 400 artillery pieces throughout the park.

With nearly 2 million tourists a year, there's always wear and tear.

This is a monument to the 94th New York Infantry.

A visitor reported the center musket falling off after a kid was seen playing with it, pulling at it.

That's pretty good.

I'll just leave it like that.

- [Narrator] There's always a constant battle against time and weather.

- [Vic] Metal wants to oxidize away, stone wants to decompose.

You have acid rain.

- [Narrator] This monument to the 6th New York Calvary was struck by lightning, and sometimes people strike the monuments with their cars, usually by accident.

All of that, and of course, what some people do on purpose.

- I would feel more comfortable if I tighten that up before it goes back out into the weather.

Being quite optimistic, I would say we'll probably have the 4th New York Independent Battery monument up within a year, get him back on his feet, so to speak, and back on the front lines.

- [Narrator] Like that Pennsylvania soldier back on guard along the Emmitsburg Road.

- I'd say it was a success story.

Kind of dropped everything else to attend to it.

It's sort of a back in your face thing for whoever perpetrated the vandalism, that he's up there, and looking good.

(moving trumpet music) - It's a breathtaking sight, just to see the mountains in the background.

Just imagine the battles, the countless lives that were lost here.

- [Narrator] Every tourist has a different reason for coming to Gettysburg.

- Oh, because it's gorgeous, and it's full of the history, and I mean, just take a look around.

(gentle fiddle music) - You can spend a week here, easy.

- [Narrator] Rob Calhoun and his father made the trip from the Carolinas.

- [Father] Just like the real thing, huh?

(gentle fiddle music) - We had a relative that fought here in Gettysburg for the Confederacy, and he died in the Peach Orchard.

At the family cemetery back in South Carolina, all it says on the tombstone is killed in Gettysburg.

So we wanted to see where he was actually wounded, where he died.

- [Narrator] Some people come to walk where the soldiers walked.

- And I would come over with my wife in the summertime, and I would actually walk those troop movements, and I would pick out a regiment or something, and if they went over a field and down through the stream and up through the woods, that's where I went.

- [Narrator] But it's the monuments that attract most people.

- Well, when I look at 'em, I see all the Americans, North and South both, that were here, fought here, did their duty, and I'm proud, I'm proud of every one of them that I see.

- [Narrator] Some monuments depict soldiers.

Some are simple markers.

All of them show where a particular regiment fought.

- [Sue] Now, we're standing on Little Round Top.

This was the scene of some pretty exciting fighting on the afternoon of July 2nd.

- [Narrator] And keeping those monuments in good shape means a lot to Sue Boardman.

- [Sue] This monument is to the 155th Pennsylvania.

A gentleman in the regiment by the name of Samuel Hill posed for that monument.

- [Narrator] She's a guide at Gettysburg, she knows all the facts.

But she also knows that preserving the monuments means preserving and telling the stories behind them.

- I see the personal side of this battle, the people, not the tactics, not the numbers, I see the people.

(gentle fiddle music) Michael tells us in the diary that on Saturday, July 4th, 1863, "It was all quiet on the night.

The rebs were retreating, and our men were burying the dead."

- [Narrator] It was this diary that changed Sue Boardman's life.

She picked it up at a yard sale, the journal of a soldier who fought at Gettysburg.

- And that particular person intrigued me.

- [Narrator] Sue had another career before Gettysburg.

She was an ER nurse, but finding that diary and her passion for history sparked a career change.

She went through the tough testing and joined about 160 licensed battlefield guides.

- [Sue] I love this.

This is, this is my life.

- [Narrator] Now, just about anywhere you go on this battlefield, Sue has a personal story at every stop.

Like here, at the 116th Pennsylvania, part of the Irish Brigade.

It's one of just a few monuments with the sculpture of a dead soldier, and Sue can tell you what inspired the choice.

- St. Clair Mulholland, the commander of the 116th Pennsylvania, during a lull in the fighting, stepped forward out of their position along this fence line, and he saw the fallen figure of a young soldier stretched out here.

He said he had the sweetest face he'd ever seen, and it was so peaceful, and his face was upturned, and he had a bullet wound right in the top of his head.

That figure haunted Mulholland for years and years, and when it came time to put up the regimental monument, it was he who suggested they use that figure to mark where they fought at Gettysburg.

- [Narrator] This monument is to the 23rd Pennsylvania, out of Philadelphia.

For their monument, the veterans chose the image of a young soldier in the regiment, named Matthew Spence.

- So as the veterans are here, gathered around in 1889 dedicating this monument, one of the veterans nudged the one next to him and said, "He looks awfully young."

And the other veterans said, "We were young."

(gentle music) - [Narrator] From Devil's Den to Copse Hill, from the Wheatfield to Little Round Top, Sue has roughly 6,000 acres' worth of stories.

Most often, they're about the triumphs and tragedies of men, except for one story her tour groups never forget.

- [Sue] This particular monument is to the 11th Pennsylvania.

- [Narrator] The story of a dog from Pittsburgh.

- She's this little pit bull puppy that was given to a captain in one of the companies of the regiment in 1861, when they left Pittsburgh for the war.

She did everything her men did, and she was extremely loyal.

- [Narrator] So loyal that after being separated from her men during the fight, Sally found her way back to their last position.

- [Sue] The burial details found Sally lying among her dead and wounded refusing to leave them.

After Gettysburg, she went on with her men for another nearly two years of war.

They went on to fight in some of the tough ones, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and it was at Petersburg in Hatcher's Run, February of 1865, Sally became a casualty of battle.

Just like many of her men, she died on the battlefield.

She got shot through the head.

- [Narrator] Years later, when the men from the 11th Pennsylvania came back to Gettysburg and chose a design for their monument, they made sure Sally was on it.

(gentle music) - Sometimes when I'm off duty, I like to just come out here, walk...

Try to imagine what it was like when they were actually here doing what they did.

Our generation can never meet a Civil War veteran, but we can get pretty close to them, we can know what they were thinking about their fight here at Gettysburg and a lot of other battlefields, just by reading and understanding these monuments, because they put them here.

(intense music) - The battle was raging out of control.

(cannons firing) It was chaos.

(cannons firing) Screaming.

(guns firing) Bullets flying everywhere, artillery shells, just all-out chaos.

(intense music) (artillery firing) The simplicity of this monument certainly is the antithesis of what was happening here in 1863.

- [Narrator] It's not a monument that stands out to most people.

- [Michael] And I think they intentionally wanted this monument to be simple, to be elegant, and just to tell the story of what they did here, quite simply.

- [Narrator] And it's not a story most people have heard.

- It was a unit that really hasn't received its just recognition through the years.

- [Narrator] Michael Dreese is an author and historian who knows about the 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers, what they did here, how they died here, and about the sacrifice of these men called the School Teachers Regiment.

(gentle music) - [Michael] The nickname School Teachers Regiment is derived from the fact that there was at least 60 teachers serving in the ranks of the 151st Pennsylvania, most prominently, the commander of the unit here at Gettysburg, Lieutenant Colonel George F. McFarland, who was the principal of an academy in McAlisterville, Pennsylvania before the war.

- [Narrator] McFarland's core unit of the 151st was indeed made up of teachers and older students, but the regiment grew as more men signed on, with farmers, factory workers, and other tradesmen eventually outnumbering the teachers.

- The nickname lived on, though, because I think it has a very romantic quality to it, to think of teachers and their youthful students fighting here on the battlefield.

Over half of the regiment hailed from southeastern Pennsylvania, Berks, Schuylkill, Juniata County, so these soldiers were literally fighting for their homes and families, 'cause the Confederate invasion was getting dangerously close to where they actually lived.

- [Narrator] On the first day of battle, the men of the 151st were sent to plug a critical gap in the Union line.

They clashed in a fierce battle with Confederates at 20 paces.

- [Michael] And they basically just lined up and slugged it out for probably a half an hour to 45 minutes.

It was a very brutal contest.

- [Narrator] The 151st Pennsylvania suffered the second highest number of casualties among all Union regiments fighting at Gettysburg, losing 75% of its men.

Still, the survivors surged on, and with dwindling ranks, joined other Union soldiers to repel the Confederates during Pickett's Charge.

- Well, when I first discovered the very heavy casualties that this unit suffered, and their significant role in the action here, I naturally assumed that there would be a great deal of published material on the unit, articles, books, perhaps a regimental history, and I found out there was a total dearth of information on the unit.

- [Narrator] So Dreese did the research himself, tracking down descendants, talking with other historians, telling the story of the 151st in a book called "Like Ripe Apples in a Storm."

The title is a quote from Lieutenant William Blodgett of the 151st, who wrote a letter to his wife a few days after the battle.

- And he wrote home, he said, "Our poor boys fell around me like ripe apples in a storm.

Some of them fought after they were wounded, two or even three times.

They were and are heroes, every one of them."

And that passage really stuck with me, because they were near the end of their enlistment term, and many of them were in the peak of their manhood, and looking at their most productive years ahead of them.

- [Narrator] It's that personal angle of the 151st that inspired Dreese.

Through hard-to-find letters, diaries, and old photographs, he gathered and preserved their stories.

- [Michael] Michael link, who was fighting as a private in the ranks, he was leveling his rifle to fire at the rebel flag, and that was the last thing he remembered seeing.

As it turns out, a bullet actually went through both of his eyes, and would blind him for life.

- [Narrator] A burial party looking for bodies found Michael Link alive.

He would end up here at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, a makeshift hospital for wounded soldiers, especially from the 151st and the Pennsylvania 142nd.

Both regiments were fighting within view of the seminary, which still stands today.

- If this building could talk, it would tell a story of great suffering, human misery, agony, death, but it also tells the story of heroism.

- [Narrator] Even as the battle raged, medical officers and Gettysburg civilians made their way to the seminary to care for the casualties.

One of the wounded was Lieutenant Jeremiah Hoffman.

- Hoffman wrote a very detailed account of what took place here in the seminary during and immediately after the battle of Gettysburg.

He talks about the burial of his good friend, Andrew Tucker.

- [Narrator] Lieutenant Tucker died inside the seminary and was taken outside for burial.

The scene lives on because of Hoffman, who was in a bunk inside this seminary room now used for storage.

Lieutenant Hoffman was able to see through an open window and later wrote about what he saw.

- "I was then laying on the bunk, and by lifting my head, could see into the garden.

I could not assist in the burial, but I could look on.

They were holding the body over the grave when the head slipped over the edge of the blanket and the lieutenant's beautiful jet black hair dragged over the ground.

The thought of his mother and sisters was called up, and surely it cannot be called unmanly that a few tears stole down my cheeks."

- [Narrator] The seminary functioned as a hospital for about two months after the battle.

The last patient to leave was the commanding officer of the Pennsylvania 151st.

- [Michael] George McFarland, who was also wounded and in this building, he had been shot through both legs.

One of those legs would actually be amputated here three days later.

- [Narrator] The tally of the casualties is now etched into this monument to the 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers, but Michael Dreese says the carvings hardly convey the valor of the men remembered as the School Teachers Regiment.

- You couldn't have expected this regiment to perform any better.

(gentle music) They were thrown in at a desperate time in the battle, when the Union lines were breaking.

There's really nobody symbolized on that monument, no one individual, and I think that kind of serves to focus the fact that they fought and died together as a unit.

- Oh, if I could talk to my great-great-grandfathers, I have lots of questions.

- [Narrator] And for good reason.

- I have a great-great-grandfather who fought here for the North in the 88th Pennsylvania, and I also have a great-great-grandfather who fought for the South in the 37th North Carolina, and by July 3rd, those two regiments were almost in direct opposition.

I've got lots of papers, some background information.

- [Narrator] And it's all right here on Terri Latcher's kitchen table.

She has spent a lot of time tracking down muster rolls, pension claims, anything that brings her closer to her ancestors.

She found this photo of her Southern great-great-grandfather as an elderly man, and even more on her Northern great-great-grandfather from Pennsylvania.

- You know, he couldn't write, so he signed his name with an X.

He had no education.

He had no schooling, but he was brave, and he fought out there, and this is his X, and that's my connection.

This was early in the war, from what we can tell, and I see the family resemblance in his face.

This is a narrative, which are his actual words when he applied for a pension.

"I enlisted in Philadelphia and went to Washington with the regiment to muster in.

I am 67, but I do remember the severity of those battles."

- [Narrator] It wasn't until after the war that these former enemies would become family, when the Pennsylvania soldier has a daughter who marries the North Carolina's soldier's son, ultimately leading to Terri.

- Now, the story that's handed down by my grandmother is that when the men got together, over holidays and so on, they had a great respect for each other.

Although she said they sometimes got into heated discussions about the cause.

- Terri likes telling the story of her great-great-grandfathers, and she enjoys spending time at this spot on the Gettysburg battlefield, where their regiments nearly clashed.

- The Union soldiers within the 88th lined up here on this ridge and fired into the distance at the Confederates, dropping many of them.

(gentle music) When I come here to this monument, takes me a few minutes to block out the buses and the cars, but then I sit there, and I realize I can sit on the same soil, touch the same ground that my ancestor did over 140 years ago.

And we don't know where we can ever do that for certain.

- [Narrator] Besides that personal connection, Terri has a professional one.

She's a battlefield guide who usually has all the answers for tourists, but she still has those questions for her great-great-grandfathers.

- Of course, I would ask the tactical questions.

Did you go over here?

Did you go over there?

Did you move this way?

Were you afraid to go there?

But I have deeper questions.

Did you believe in slavery?

Did you think it was wrong?

But I also would like to ask the simple things.

What was your hair like?

What did you do when you were sick and you had to March 30 miles?

(gentle music) - [Narrator] And Terri also has words for the people who read and respect the monuments.

- I thank them for coming, because every time they walk across the battlefield, every time they look at the 88th Pennsylvania monument, or the 37 North Carolina Brigade plaque, every time they do that, they remember my grandfathers.

They don't know they do, but they do.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] The biggest monument on the battlefield is the Pennsylvania State Memorial.

- Two Haases, wonder if those were related to Dr. Haas from Connellsville.

- Or Mount Pleasant.

- Or Mount Pleasant.

- [Narrator] It lists the names of every Pennsylvanian who fought here.

- Just wanted to see if there was any names that I recognize from home, relatives.

- They would have been from Fayette County, probably, you know, southwestern Pennsylvania.

- [Barbara] Haven't had any luck yet.

We're still looking.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] With impressive archways, a massive dome, and a great view from the top, the Pennsylvania Memorial is on just about every tourist.

But not so obvious is a memorial most people will never find.

- [Guide] You'll notice this boulder we're standing next to has an inscription on it that says "D.A.

140 P.V."

That stands for David Acheson.

- [Ellen] 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers, and it marked the spot where David was buried.

- [Narrator] 200 miles from Gettysburg, at her home in Washington County, Pennsylvania, Ellen Armstrong knows the story.

- [Ellen] David Acheson was my great-great-uncle.

- [Narrator] And now she shares David's story with her daughter.

- [Ellen] He has a gentle face.

He doesn't remind me of a soldier.

- [Narrator] Ellen recently inherited his photographs.

She also has the letters David wrote as he marched toward Gettysburg.

- "June 9th, 1863.

Dear mother, there was some firing between the sharpshooters on the other side."

- [Narrator] David Acheson was the son of a prominent judge in Washington, Pennsylvania, a student at Washington College, now known as Washington and Jefferson.

In 1862, he was commissioned captain of Company C, 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

- [Ellen] David came alive for me, and David and a whole lot of other young kids who were called up, volunteered, and went into this awful, bloody war.

- [Narrator] David was just 22 when he sent these letters home, and what he wrote often showed it.

- [Ellen] "There were three or four ladies down upon our lines yesterday.

It was quite a treat to look at them, and it brought to my mind the fact that I had not spoken to one for nine months, quite a long time to be deprived of such a pleasure."

- [Narrator] In another letter, David describes a brush with Abraham Lincoln, sending a priceless image into the future.

- "Dear mother, Mr Lincoln and numerous staff rode along the lines upon horseback, hat in hand.

I had a good opportunity of seeing him as he rode past and took advantage of it, keeping my eyes upon him as long as he was sight.

The president looked careworn."

- [Narrator] This letter from David is sent just a few days before his arrival at Gettysburg.

- [Ellen] "I never knew what a man was able to endure before.

All look anxiously for the news from Pennsylvania.

I hope this is but the beginning of a final defeat to the rebs.

I believe this to be the campaign of the war, and the rebs have staked their all upon it."

(gentle fiddle music) - [Narrator] There are no more letters.

- [Ellen] In the upper left-hand corner, faintly, the last he wrote, "Killed on 2nd July, 1863."

- [Narrator] Confederate fire killed David Acheson and many of his comrades as they advanced across a wheat field.

When the fighting stopped, his men dragged their captain's body just inside the tree line and buried him near a large boulder.

- [Ellen] They buried him and marked the stone with his initials so that people coming to recover his body were able to find him.

- [Narrator] Weeks later, a cousin and a friend made the trip to Gettysburg, found the engraved boulder, recovered David's body, and took him home.

- [Ellen] Well, it meant a lot to their family to be able to bring him home.

- [Narrator] David Acheson was again laid to rest at a cemetery in his hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania.

The tombstone reads, "Fell at the head of his regiment in the battle of Gettysburg."

- He seemed like a neat guy.

Some of his troops and friends described him as whimsical.

- [Narrator] Ellen's daughter has never seen that simple monument at Gettysburg.

Her mother thinks it's time she does.

- And I'm very anxious for my daughter, who's 13, to get down there, and I think the fact that she's been here today and looked at the pictures and looked at the letters and thought about David, it'll really mean something to her to see that monument with David's initials on it, to think what happened at that spot.

(gentle music) "I have written this hurriedly, for the mail is going out soon.

Your affectionate son, David."

- When I've thought about the importance of horses, I thought you know, there wouldn't have been a battle if it weren't for horses.

All the way!

They were as essential to the army as the fighting soldier on the ground.

We'll all line up out here.

- [Narrator] Horses still roam this battlefield.

- [Terri] This battle began on July 1st.

- [Narrator] Seeing Gettysburg on horseback is getting more popular with tourists.

The park and volunteer groups are now working to improve and expand the trails.

Terri Latcher is one of a few licensed guides who give horse tours on the same ground where her great-great-grandfathers both fought.

- Doing horseback tours forces you to slow down your pace on this battlefield.

(gentle music) We'll be able to see the placement of some of the troops by the monuments.

- [Narrator] On this group tour, Terri wears a microphone.

The riders behind her wear headsets.

- [Terri] Now, as we ride into this area, we're riding on one of the original farm lanes.

Well, I'm a horse person at heart, and I love the battlefield.

So you combine the two, and it's great.

- [Narrator] The horses are limited to a small portion of the battlefield, but riders are still able to take in vistas that cover many miles.

(gentle music) - [Terri] This equestrian monument is one of many that was put on the battlefield to commemorate the officers and their horses.

- [Narrator] There are about a dozen equestrian monuments on the battlefield, many of them capture the core commanders and the actual horses they rode.

- I really do appreciate the horse monuments.

It's a nice tribute to the horses without taking anything away from the soldiers and the lives of those men who sacrificed here.

- [Narrator] An estimated 80,000 horses served at Gettysburg, ridden by calvary, officers, messengers.

They pulled artillery, supply wagons, ambulances.

About 5,000 horses were killed here, many others injured.

One of the wounded was Old Baldy, now immortalized on the impressive Gettysburg monument to General George Gordon Meade.

- He was an army man all of his life.

Fought before the Civil War, was a captain in the army at the outbreak of the Civil War, and quickly rose to general, actually three days before this battle.

General Meade was put in command of the entire Union Army of the Potomac.

That's over 90,000 soldiers.

- [Narrator] General Meade's triumph at Gettysburg was the pinnacle of his military career.

His horse was wounded at Gettysburg, where Meade wrote from his headquarters that "Old Baldy has been shot again, and I fear will not get over it," but the horse survived.

- [Terri] He was quite a courageous horse, carried Meade through most of the battles in the Civil War.

- [Narrator] It's believed Old Baldy was shot five times before the war ended.

He actually outlived Meade, led the General's funeral procession, then died 10 years later.

- That's not the end of Old Baldy.

A couple of weeks after he was buried, some veterans dug him up, severed his head, and his head was stuffed, mounted, and is now in Philadelphia.

- [Narrator] Visitors enjoy Terri's stories about the equestrian monuments.

One question she gets all the time is about the connection between the horses' hooves and the fate of the officer on horseback.

- If you look at the horse hooves, they can tell you a story.

- [Narrator] At Gettysburg, there's an unusual coincidence.

In just about every case, if all four hooves are touching the base of the monument, the officer on that horse was not injured.

- If one hoof is up, the rider was wounded.

If two hosts are sculpted up, the rider was killed.

Now, that wasn't planned, it was just a coincidence.

- [Narrator] One exception to that coincidence is this equestrian monument, dedicated in 1998 to General James Longstreet.

- [Terri] Because the sculptor sculpted the monument with one hoof up, and General Longstreet was not wounded.

- [Narrator] The trivia and the footnotes in history keep the riders moving along, seeing this place the way the soldiers did.

- Rain, shine, heat of the summer and even snow, we do go out, and that also gives you another perspective, and sometimes when we're out and it's 45 degrees and it starts to rain and the visitors on the horses kind of huddle down under their jackets and they look miserable, then I try to use that opportunity to remind them that soldiers would have to endure this too.

(gentle music) From the back of a horse gives me the perspective that many of the soldiers would have, that we don't get in a car or in a bus.

Just gives you a completely different perspective, at the same time, slowing you down to take it all in.

(gentle music) - [Tim] Heroes, people who, they get no press, no one knows who they are.

- [Narrator] This tourist is not describing heroes from the past, his appreciation is in the present.

- You know, we come out here every year and enjoy these things, but never question, well, why is this monument not corroded?

Why is this plaque not falling off this rock?

It's because these people who care enough and work behind the scenes.

- Oh my goodness, yes.

Oh, the work that they do, not only the people who work for the Park Service, but the volunteers.

(uplifting music) - When I'm painting these carriages, I think about the men that fought with these weapons.

The veterans loved this place.

They knew how important this battle was two days after the battle ended.

- [Narrator] Barb Adams knows the importance of preserving this place.

She's one of about 3,400 volunteers who give their time here.

Some, like Barb, are local, some are from out-of-state.

Many devote their time to a specific monument.

(leaves rustling) - We chose the 7th Ohio Infantry, and we're from Ohio, so we feel close to them, and it's our duty to help them out.

The National Park Service, you know, only has so many men, and this is a very big park.

It's a huge park, and every minute that the volunteers can put in is a great help for the Park Service.

- [Narrator] And volunteers do everything, from landscaping to building, or repairing miles of fences.

- Oh, I love to volunteer.

I wake up every morning wantin' to know what I can do.

- [Narrator] Barb does a variety of volunteer jobs at Gettysburg, but she puts in most of her time about four days a week, painting cannons.

- [Barb] The sun does a number on them.

The kids like to climb on them, so they get scratched.

So we go back through every few years and try and repaint them just to keep them updated and nice and shiny and bright.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] In all, the park has about 400 cannons.

Many are displayed on the battlefield, but you'll find a lot of them in this place.

That's because keeping Gettysburg's cannons in good shape requires a special operation just for the big guns.

- We call it the Gettysburg National Military Cannon Shop, and one, two, three, four, five, six spokes have been replaced.

- [Narrator] Joe Catchings is a preservation specialist.

He oversees the work here, from small repairs to major reassembly.

Many of the cannon tubes on the battlefield are true Civil War relics, but the carriages are reproductions.

The originals were made of wood, and could never have lasted as outdoor displays.

- I think they knew early on that wooden carriages we're not gonna last very long in the field.

- [Narrator] So in the late 1800s, replicas were made of cast iron, but even they require maintenance.

- It takes us a week and a half to two weeks to do the repair work.

It takes another week and a half to two weeks to paint a carriage.

- [Narrator] That's where volunteers like Barb come in, helping the small staff of employees in the cannon shop.

- [Barb] And once they have been restored by the workmen down at the cannon shop, they need to have several coats of paint for the preservative and then the top coats and then the black coats.

And so each cannon gets approximately six layers of paint.

Then once they're put out on the battlefield, the paint will probably last about seven years.

- [Narrator] Besides painting these artillery monuments.

- The direction of the cannon always is facing your enemy.

- [Narrator] Barb has learned a lot about them.

She says any tourist can too, if they just look closer.

- [Barb] This is an original cannon barrel.

It was manufactured in 1863 at the West Point Foundry in West Point, New York.

It has a three inch barrel, meaning that the bore here is three inch.

The initials of the inspector were D.W.F.

It weighs 858 pounds, and it's number 14.

This barrel was not necessarily here at Gettysburg, but did see service during the Civil War.

Whenever you see a marker with cannon on either side of it, that monument and those cannons were placed there because that's exactly where that regiment fought.

- [Narrator] And it's in honor of those who fought that has Barb Adams and so many other volunteers mending and raking and painting.

- I see it as a little thank you to the people who fought here.

(emotional music) - I often think, what would the soldiers say if they saw this place now, and you just kinda think, "Gee, it's changed so, and yet it's the same."

(gentle music) - [Linda] I am no one.

- [Narrator] She's somewhat of a mystery.

Few people know her name or much about her.

- [Linda] I'm a simple person, and I think a lot of the soldiers were simple people.

They came from the farms, they had families, but they came, they believed in something, and they came and they fought.

- [Narrator] So that's why Linda Bell comes here.

- [Linda] Every night, when the sun goes down, I come out to the gate of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg and play taps.

(solemn trumpet music) Nobody knows me, but I do it.

Sometimes there are people to listen, sometimes there aren't.

Sometimes it is a beautiful night, sometimes it's raining and snowing and blowing, and I play.

- [Narrator] Linda was inspired by a ceremony she saw in Europe.

She lives near the battlefield, and decided to play for the Gettysburg soldiers.

- It's a way for me to remember not just those who died here during the Civil War, but I think the soldiers who died before and those who are still at war and are dying now.

Men who have been in the war, a lot of them will come up, veterans, and they will say thank you, and often they are crying.

I usually see people who are here, stand quiet, listen, let me finish, and then they go on about what they were doing.

- [Narrator] Her bugle has sounded every night for 12 years now.

- [Linda] I'm getting older.

I would like to continue this.

I would love to have a group of us do this, and we take turns.

- [Narrator] She's trying to draft others to help out, but until then, Linda Bell keeps playing her tribute for the men behind the monuments.

- [Linda] And I play for them.

I don't play for me, I play for them.

(solemn trumpet music) - [Narrator] There's a party at this home in Gettysburg, with steak and beer and laughter.

(people laughing) All happening at the edge of the sacred battlefield.

That might seem like an unusual place for a celebration until you hear the story behind it.

- I've got 100 sergeants up here, so it's great to give an opportunity to those Marines who would never normally experience coming to Gettysburg and seeing the history here and also a chance to interact with Seamus.

- [Man] Seamus is the coolest guy I've ever met.

- [Narrator] Seamus is Seamus Garrahy, former Marine, whose property borders the battlefield.

A dozen times a year, Seamus fires up his grill.

- Doesn't get any better.

- No, it doesn't.

- [Narrator] And hosts a steak and beer dinner for hundreds of Marines and others who serve in the military.

This group is from the Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico.

Just about all of them have seen active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

- Motivation, determination, honor, courage, commitment, integrity, bearing, comradery, it's all on there.

Allow the Marines to step back and relax from their duties as marksmanship coaches and instructors, and establish some comradery and esprit with themselves and within the organization.

(people chattering) - [Narrator] Seamus gets food for the party through donations, or pays for some of it himself.

- Steak, beer, beans, and bread, and that's all of it.

- This is my third time up here with Seamus, and I know what to expect, so I think he's got down to a science, and it's impressing every time, it's fantastic.

- [Narrator] The Marines will stay in Gettysburg for a few days, camping out in Seamus' yard so they don't have to pay for lodging somewhere else.

- Charge your glasses, turn off the light.

We'll go build a fire.

I need two guys.

- [Narrator] But this isn't just a weekend of R and R. Early the next morning, these Marines are on the battlefield.

- Today, we're having a professional military education on the battle of Gettysburg to educate our Marines.

Militarily, if you take a look at the tactics and techniques that they used then and learn from that.

- [Narrator] The Marines get briefed on how the troops moved across this battlefield in 1863.

- [Man] Think about what it was like, the Alabamans that were comin' over... - [Narrator] They'll see the monuments, study the terrain, and learn who was defeated where and why.

- [Loren] I've done two deployments, one of which was a combat deployment to Afghanistan.

- [Narrator] One of the Marines in this group is not only looking at this place tactically.

- [Loren] How would I have my Marines assault that hill?

How would I have defended this position here?

- [Narrator] He's also seeing it emotionally.

- [Loren] My family all fought for this Confederacy in the 47th Alabama Infantry.

- [Narrator] Loren Lynch knows of five ancestors who fought for the South.

Three of them were killed here at Gettysburg, another, his great-great-great grandfather, survived this battle.

- [Loren] He fought through here, up Big Round Top and down to Little Round Top.

- [Narrator] And just for a little while, Corporal Lynch will leave the other Marines to go off alone, looking for a monument he's always wanted to see.

- [Loren] This is a big part of my family history.

- [Narrator] He'll find the Alabama State Memorial.

- It's awesome.

It's just weird to think that four or five generations ago, my great-great-great grandfather stood somewhere around here.

(gentle music) Wherever you go that Americans have lost their lives in battle, you definitely reflect on where you've been, what you've done, and what you've seen.

- [Narrator] His observations come from experience, sacrifice, and loss.

In Afghanistan, Corporal Lynch's squad was hit by enemy fire.

Lynch was wounded.

Two of his comrades, good friends, were killed.

- Nick died in my arms, and Ricky was killed maybe two feet from me.

I think about them, and you know, I think that war's not pretty no matter where it's fought.

No matter where.

- [Narrator] And from this position near the Alabama Monument, where his ancestors once stood and fought.

- [Loren] Sure as hell wasn't easy.

- [Narrator] There's time for one more look, and Corporal Loren Lynch has a better view than many others.

- They fought from here to Little Round Top, the whole way.

And everybody I'm here with has been in combat.

Everybody I'm here with knows what it's like to fight for every inch that you get.

(somber music) The only thing I can do is stand here and look, look out at what I'm seeing in awe and just say thank you.

(engines rumbling) - [Harry] Often people wonder why 300 Harleys are going down Route 15.

So many people have dedicated themselves to the cause.

- [Narrator] And Harry Readshaw is among them.

He helped organize this motorcycle ride from Harrisburg to Gettysburg, just one of many fundraisers for the Pennsylvania monuments.

- It just seems to me that somebody should undertake the chore of raising funds to repair and restore them.

- [Narrator] So that's what the state representative from Pittsburgh did after reading about more than a century of trying to maintain the monuments.

- [Harry] Some monuments just needed cleaned and waxed, buffed, with just a minimal of maintenance, and others, there were arms missing, rifles missing.

They had been defaced, vandalized... - [Narrator] At the state capitol, Readshaw worked to create the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Project.

It raises money through individual donors, organizations, and nonprofits, using no tax dollars.

At first, Readshaw started small.

- We got many of the school children in Pennsylvania involved.

They did walks, they did book readings.

- [Narrator] The project picked up speed and a nickname, Readshaw's Raiders, attracted support that ranged from bikers to ballroom dancers.

The first Civil War Reenactors' Ball was held at the Gettysburg American Legion.

- [Harry] Soon we found out that the interest was so great by those who re-enact and dress in period dress that we moved to to the rotunda of the Capitol.

- [Narrator] With about a quarter million dollars raised so far, the monuments are in good shape today.

But Readshaw is thinking long-term, and perpetual care.

- Our activity now is to endow them all.

The National Park Service will simply draw on that money to repair and restore monuments in the future.

- [Narrator] People have thanked Harry Readshaw in many public forums, but his real reward comes when nobody's around.

- Well, I've walked this battlefield by myself, and it's at those moments, as corny as this may sound, they sort of speak to me, and I get some thanks from them.

(gentle music) - When you walk this battlefield, you can always feel like there's somebody maybe walking with you.

- Their warm spirits and souls, a lot of them are here, I believe, and that's why it's so comforting.

- [Narrator] That is a sentiment shared by many people who visit this place.

- The freedom that I live for and I fight for started right here.

- [Narrator] You'll hear it from those who preserve the history.

- These monuments really do tell a story.

- [Narrator] It's on the faces of those who give their time here.

And in the work of everyone saving these old stone soldiers.

- My hat's off to these people that spend their time working and preserving these monuments, because these people need to be remembered.

(gentle music) (gentle fiddle music) (gentle fiddle music) This program is made possible by a grant from the Pennsylvania Public Television Network.

The network receives funding from the Commonwealth to provide public television to all Pennsylvanians, and by viewers like you, thank you.