Civil War Gettysburg Vacation Photographs - Ghosts of Gettysburg Tour - Index of Photos

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1–3, 1863, was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often consideredas the war's turning point. Fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the Battle of Gettysburg saw 165,000 Union and Confederate soldiers clash in a three day battle that resulted in more than 51,000 casualties. On the third day of the battle, Confederate soldiers in an attack called Pickett's Charge reached the copse of trees near The Angle (a corner in a low stone wall) on Cemetery Ridge; this represented the farthest point north that Robert E. Lee's forces reached during the Civil War. For this reason the copse of trees is often referred to as the High Water Mark of the Confederacy.

Pickett's Charge was a disaster for the Confederate forces and ended Robert E. Lee's plan to move his forces north to Harrisburg Pennsylvania and on to Washington DC. While the Civil War continued on for two more years, the Battle of Gettysburg changed the dynamics of the war and General Lee was never truly on the offensive again.

Gettysburg is considered one of the most haunted places in America. Several companies offer ghost tours around the city. In 1994, former park ranger Mark Nesbitt started the first ghost walk in Gettysburg, The Ghosts of Gettysburg Candlelight Walking Tours. Armed with tales from his ghost books - and with a few that aren't in the books -guides dressed in period attire take visitors on evening tours through sections of town that were bloody battlefields long ago; through night-darkened streets to houses and buildings where it's not as quiet as it should be; to sites on the old Pennsylvania College campus where the slain once lay in rows, and the wounded suffered horribly, waiting to become corpses themselves; to cemeteries where the dead lie. . . sometimes not so peacefully. Gettysburg may very well be, acre for acre, the most haunted place in America. Mark Nesbitt is a former National Park Service Ranger/Historian. He started his own research and writing company in 1977 and did research and advertising copy for some of America's best historical artists. Beginning in 1978 he began writing books, including If the South Won Gettysburg (1980), 35 Days to Gettysburg (1992), Rebel Rivers (1993), Saber and Scapegoat: J.E.B. Stuart and the Gettysburg Controversy (1994), Through Blood and Fire (1996), and the best selling Ghosts of Gettysburg Series (1991- present). Many of his stories have been seen, and/or heard, on The History Channel, A&E, The Travel Channel, Unsolved Mysteries, Coast to Coast AM, and numerous other local television programs and specials. In July of 2004, his Ghosts of Gettysburg Series received the National Paranormal Award for “Best True Hauntings Collection” and “Best ‘Local Haunt’ Guidebook”.