CAU > Seminars and Study Tours > Battle of Gettysburg/Civil War

Battle of Gettysburg/Civil War

October 7-10, 2005

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The Turning Point: The Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War

October 07-10, 2005
Pennsylvania
Hunter R. Rawlings III, David Silbey, and Joel H. Silbey

In the sultry days of July 1863 all Americans waited anxiously for news of what everyone knew was the monumental engagement of a most terrible war. Arrayed across the hills and fields of the Pennsylvania countryside, the Confederate forces of Robert E. Lee and the northern Army of the Potomac were determining whether this nation, "the last, best hope" of humankind, as Abraham Lincoln called it, was destined to remain whole. Finally, slowly, the telegraph operators ticked out the news from the Peach Orchard, Cemetery Ridge, and Little Round Top: the Union forces were prevailing. The Confederates were in retreat. Lee would be unable to continue his invasion of the North; the slow spiral downward to Southern defeat had begun.

Historians, Northerners, and Southerners always have and always will debate much about the Civil War (including what to call it), but all agree that the Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point of the war. In this weekend seminar, which will combine lectures and discussions with visits to key battlefield sites, we will try to better understand both the immediate and long-term military and political significance of the events that took place among the rolling hills and farms of Pennsylvania.

Virginian, classicist, and past Cornell President Hunter R. Rawlings III; Joel H. Silbey, the President White Professor of History at Cornell, who has just completed a year as Harmsworth Professor at Oxford, and David Silbey, Cornellian, military historian, and professor of history at Alvernia College in Pennsylvania, will be our guides and leaders. Hunter, Joel, and David will help us look at Gettysburg the way it deserves to be seen�close up and in broad perspective, not simply as a critical military event, but, as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it in his memorial address of November 1863, as a defining moment in our national history.

Our headquarters will be the historic, recently restored and expanded Gettysburg Hotel. The program fee (per-person, double-occupancy) of $1,295 includes all lodging and meals, site visits and admission fees, ground transportation during the program, taxes and gratuities, full escort services, and the full educational program. The supplement for single occupancy is $255. The program will begin with dinner on Friday, October 7 and conclude before lunch on Monday, October 10.

This is not a physically strenuous program, but you must be able to walk a mile or more, remain on your feet for an hour or more at a time, navigate uneven, hilly terrain, and climb steps. We expect the weather to be pleasant and mild, but rain showers are always a possibility. Participants will be responsible for their own transportation to and from Gettysburg.