Here I am surveying the view from Little Round Top, scene of a spectacular countercharge by Union troops at Gettysburg. (Photo by Becky Giles)
By Kevin S. Giles
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
When visiting the battlefields at Gettysburg (and there are many), I looked across those hallowed grounds at the faces no longer there, trying to picture them as sons and brothers, more than armies.
Two of my great grandfathers fought with the Union at Gettysburg. Abner Skinner belonged to a Wisconsin infantry unit. William Boyle, who immigrated from Belfast, Ireland, fought with the US Volunteers from New York. I come from an old family on my mother’s side, stretched over decades as marriages and kids came late, which is why both great grandfathers died long before I was born.