Vaughan to Gettysburg: the battlefield day by chauffeured car

Gettysburg, on the way to Washington

Gettysburg is a small Pennsylvania town surrounded by the most-visited battlefield in the country: for three days in July 1863 a hundred and sixty thousand men fought across its farms, fifty-one thousand were killed, wounded or missing, and four months later Lincoln spoke two hundred and seventy-two words at the new cemetery's dedication that a Grade 10 student in Vaughan has read. The Gettysburg National Military Park keeps the six thousand acres as they were — the ridges, the stone walls, the thirteen hundred monuments the regiments put up — with a museum and visitor centre whose film, Cyclorama painting and galleries take two hours, and an auto tour of twenty-four miles and sixteen stops that a family drives with a Licensed Battlefield Guide in the front seat for two hours, narrating; it is the way the park recommends the field be seen and the way a chauffeured Sprinter sees it best, the guide beside the chauffeur and the family at the tables. Gettysburg sits on US 15 between Harrisburg and Washington, ninety minutes from the capital, and the Washington post makes it the drive's first night; the Destination Gettysburg site has the town, and the border guide has the bridge.

The road

From Kleinburg the 407 and the QEW to the Lewiston–Queenston Bridge, I-190 and I-90 to Rochester, I-390 south, I-86 to Corning, I-99 and I-81 down through Williamsport to Harrisburg, and US 15 south for forty minutes to Gettysburg — nine hours by the estimate and nine and a half with the booth and stops, which is the reason it is the first night of a Washington trip rather than a destination on its own: Vaughan at seven, Gettysburg's hotel by 4:30, the battlefield the next morning, Washington by 3. A family that wants Gettysburg alone splits the drive at Corning and stays two nights in the town.

The museum and the Cyclorama

The Museum and Visitor Center's day begins with the film A New Birth of Freedom, narrated by Morgan Freeman, then the Cyclorama — Paul Philippoteaux's 1884 painting of Pickett's Charge, three hundred and seventy-seven feet around and forty-two high, restored and hung in the round with a sound-and-light programme that puts the family in the middle of the third day — then the twelve galleries of the museum with the artifacts, the maps and the soldiers' letters; two hours, and the tickets on the park's page or the Gettysburg Foundation's site include the three. The Licensed Battlefield Guide is booked here too, weeks ahead in summer.

The auto tour, with the guide

The Licensed Battlefield Guides are the park's own — examined and licensed by the National Park Service since 1915 — and a two-hour private tour puts one in the Sprinter's front seat to narrate the sixteen stops in the order the battle happened: McPherson Ridge and the first day's fighting west of town; the Eternal Light Peace Memorial; Oak Ridge; the second day's swing to the south — the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den's boulders where the children climb, Little Round Top where the 20th Maine held the Union's left and where the view over the field explains the whole battle; the third day's Pickett's Charge from Seminary Ridge to the Angle and the High Water Mark, a mile of open field the family walks a hundred yards of; Culp's Hill; and the Soldiers' National Cemetery. The guide answers a Grade 10 student's questions in a way a brochure cannot, and the guides' association's site has the booking.

The cemetery and the Address

The Soldiers' National Cemetery beside the visitor centre is where Lincoln spoke on November 19, 1863 — the Soldiers' National Monument near the spot, the graves in their semicircles by state, the Lincoln Address Memorial with the text — and a family stands where the Address was given and reads it aloud, which takes two minutes and which every Vaughan family that has done it describes; the park's rangers give the cemetery walk on summer afternoons.

The town, and Eisenhower's farm

Gettysburg's Lincoln Square is the town's centre — the David Wills House where Lincoln finished the Address the night before, the Gettysburg Hotel, the shops and the restaurants of Steinwehr Avenue and the square; the Shriver House and the Jennie Wade House tell the civilians' battle; the ghost tours after dark are the teenagers' evening. The Eisenhower National Historic Site — the farm where the president retired, beside the battlefield, with the house as the Eisenhowers left it — is reached by the park's shuttle from the visitor centre and is the second day's hour for a family staying two nights.

The day, in shape

The Sprinter from the Gettysburg hotel at 8:30, the visitor centre at 8:45 for the nine o'clock film, the Cyclorama at 9:30, the museum until 11:15; the guide meets the Sprinter at 11:30 for the two-hour auto tour with the family at the tables and the guide's map on the screen; Little Round Top at 12:45 with the twenty minutes on the rocks; the Angle at 1:30; the cemetery at 2 with the Address read; lunch on Steinwehr Avenue at 2:30; US 15 south at 3:15 and Washington's Beltway by 4:45, or a second Gettysburg night with the Eisenhower farm and the ghost tour. One daily-hire day inside the Washington trip, or two nights as its own return, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Nine hours from Vaughan as a driver, on a day whose end is the battlefield's morning; the auto tour's twenty-four miles of narrow park roads with the guide's directions and a family looking at the field rather than the wheel; the parking at Little Round Top on a summer Saturday; and the ninety minutes to Washington after. For a couple the day is a car's and the guide rides with them; for a family of five with a Grade 10 student, or two families in a Sprinter, it is one fare and a parent who listened to the guide instead of following the signs.

Seasons

The first days of July for the battle's anniversary and the reenactments outside the park; autumn for the field's colour and the empty roads; spring for the Remembrance Day parade in November and the quiet; summer for the ranger programmes and the full hotels, which the travel desk holds early. The battlefield is open every day of the year and the winter's snow on the ridges is its own view.

Pairing it

Gettysburg pairs with Washington ninety minutes south as the drive's first night, with Hershey an hour north for a family that adds the chocolate town, with Philadelphia two hours east and the Pennsylvania loop, and with Corning as the drive's split.

The two-night version, in order

A family of four from Kleinburg that wants Gettysburg alone: Friday's drive with the SUV, Corning's glass museum at 12:30 and the Williamsport night; Saturday's I-81 to Gettysburg by ten, the visitor centre's film and Cyclorama, the museum, lunch on Steinwehr Avenue, the guide's two-hour tour at two with the light on the field, the cemetery at 4:30 and the Address read, the Gettysburg Hotel on Lincoln Square, the ghost tour at nine for the teenagers; Sunday the Eisenhower farm's shuttle at nine, the Shriver House at 11, a second drive to Little Round Top at noon for the photograph without the guide, the road home at one by US 15 and I-81 — nine hours with a Corning stop — Kleinburg by 10:30. Two nights, the SUV as a return, and the Destination Gettysburg site has the town's inns for the travel desk to hold.

The Grade 10 curriculum, and why the field works

Ontario's Grade 10 history reaches the American Civil War only glancingly, but the Grade 10 and 11 students who take American history and the ones who have read the Address in English class arrive knowing the words and not the ground; the guide's two hours on the field — why Little Round Top mattered, what Pickett's men walked into, how the town's civilians hid — turn the words into a place, and Vaughan teachers who have brought their own children say the field does in an afternoon what a unit does in a month. The Cyclorama's programme and Devil's Den's rocks hold a younger sibling for the same afternoon.

Costs, plainly

Gettysburg inside a Washington trip is one daily-hire day and the first night's hotel in the booking engine; alone it is a two-night return. The visitor centre's tickets and the guide's fee — set by the park, paid to the guide — are the family's own, and the battlefield itself is free. Against the fare are nine hours from Vaughan as a driver and the auto tour's twenty-four miles with a guide giving directions; a couple does it in a car with the guide beside them, and a family of five with a Grade 10 student or two families in a Sprinter book it for one fare and a parent who listened.

The Seminary Ridge Museum and the first day

The Lutheran Theological Seminary's cupola on Seminary Ridge is where General Buford watched the Confederate advance on the battle's first morning, and the Seminary Ridge Museum in the building below tells the first day and the field hospital the seminary became — the surgeons' tools, the wounded's letters, the cupola tour at the top for the view Buford had; a family that has done the visitor centre's third-day Cyclorama does the first day here, and the museum's site has the cupola tour's booking. The Sachs Covered Bridge, where both armies crossed, is the photograph on the way to the Eisenhower farm.

The Sprinter on the park roads

The auto tour's roads are narrow, one-way in places and shared with the park's buses and the bicycles; the Sprinter fits them and parks at each stop's pull-off, and the guide's directions go to the chauffeur while the family looks at the field — the arrangement the guides prefer, since a driving parent following directions sees the wheel and not the ridge.

Booking it

Book the battlefield as a daily-hire day inside a Washington trip or as a two-night return from your Vaughan address; tell us the guide's time, the hotel, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the guide's meeting point on it.

Book the Gettysburg day