107. 85th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

Regular readers of Growing Up in Gettysburg recognize that our posts are written chronologically, and we are currently writing about the summer of 1948 between our junior and senior years in high school.

1948 marked the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, so we assumed there would be some recognition of that milestone. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

The Gettysburg Times carried stories about the anniversary of the Dubois, Pennsylvania’s fire company and the 25th anniversary of Yankee Stadium. Obviously, there were also many reports about local residents celebrating wedding anniversaries, but we found only one reference to the 85th anniversary of the battle.  It was a poem  by Osborn F. Hevener, and published in the Times on July 3, 1948.

To Gettysburg

July 3, 1948

  85 Years After

                    Where Kemper bled and Armistead,

Tall grows the wheat and lush the corn,

                    Hear I the call of Longstreet’s voice

                    And rebel yells reborn.

          

                    Is Pickett there, in fantasy

                    To lead his men to death and glory?

                    Do waving stalks of flowering grain

                    Spring from the soil to tell a story?

                    And is that tale, terse and unadorned,

                    A sonnet sure to make one pause:

                  “Blow wheat, rise corn, caress the meadow,

                    We who died knew no Lost Cause.”