Friday, April 15, 2011

News---Gettyburg NMP Rangers Launch Weblog

The Official Gettysburg Park Blog: From the Fields of Gettysburg, News and historical views from the staff at Gettysburg National Military Park.

From the Fields at Gettysburg, April 12, 2011:

Each summer our rangers present over 2,100 interpretive programs for the public. We cover a wide range of subjects with these programs and reach quite a few people, but there are many things about Gettysburg we don't cover, either because we don't have time or the subject doesn't quite fit a formal interpretive program. A blog however, provides us the ideal outlet to explore a wide variety of topics. We can do it year round and you don't need to be in Gettysburg to participate. You can be anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. The chilly wind and falling temperatures of fall and winter may curtail our interpretive programs but not our blogging.

I am Scott Hartwig, a supervisory historian at Gettysburg National Military Park. I have worked at Gettysburg full-time since 1980 and like to say that I have never been bored a single day in my career here. Sounds contrived but it is true. It is a fascinating, exciting place to work and not a week goes by that I don't acknowledge how fortunate I am to work here. My part in this blogging adventure is to tackle history topics while my partner Katie Lawhon blogs about park news. But I won't do the history part alone. All of our permanent historians and rangers will be making contributions. They are Angie Atkinson, Matt Atkinson, Bert Barnett, Troy Harman, John Heiser, Tom Holbrook, Evangelina Rubalcava, and Karlton Smith. And we will have other people on the park staff make contributions from time to time.

We hope to range far and wide in what we cover about Gettysburg with this blog. The subject matter is deep and rich; the battle, its aftermath, the Soldiers' National Cemetery, the Gettysburg Address, the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, monuments, marking the field, battlefield farms, soldiers, civilians, preserving and protecting the park resources today, interpreting the battle . . . you get the picture; we have a nearly inexhaustible supply of topics we can cover. It should be interesting and I hope get at not only the stories about this special place, but also why we preserve it and what it continues to teach us.

We plan on a schedule of a new history related post every two weeks. However, our first two posts will be this Thursday and Friday, to mark the 150th anniversary of the firing on Ft. Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War. The subject will be some of the soldiers who participated in that engagement and later fought Gettysburg. See you then.

Scott Hartwig, Supervisory Historian, Gettysburg National Military Park


Gettysburg National Military Park Weblog

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