Gettysburg Hauntings
Gettysburg Hauntings
When General Meade met General Lee
At Gettysburg in 1863
Sons of the South battled Northern brothers
And neither side has ever recovered
Fifty-one thousand lives lost in three days
Of a summertime swelter, July haze
Souls rose not to heaven from bodies piled
On blood-soaked battlefields spanning 40 miles
An on-scene photographer moved fallen men
To snap better images with his lens
Hats off to Alex Gardner if you please
Today picture-takers’ cameras freeze
At a large bouldered site called Devil’s Den
Sharpshooter hid, killed unsuspecting men
Travelers at night on Pennsylvania roads
Claim they see soldiers, hear cannons explode
A century after the Revolution
United our states to wage war as one
Virginians were forced to choose blue or gray
Mason Dixon Line divided that way
If only Tom Jefferson’s wise notion
Had not been struck from the Declaration
Slavery, the impetus for war and hate
Would have been quashed before State versus State
Gettysburg might have been a peaceful farm
Where soldiers had never succumbed to harm
But restless spirits, faces pale and gaunt
Never retreat from their Gettysburg haunt
Our nation’s darkest hour plays out each night
And passersby still marvel at the sight
Where sons of the South battled Northern brothers
For neither side will ever recover
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