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New Gettysburg museum maps out battle's history

The Associated Press

April 27, 2008

Museum and Visitor Center at the Gettysburg National Military Park

A conservator works on a section of the famous "Battle of Gettysburg" cyclorama painting, a 360-degree canvas that gives viewers the feeling of being placed in the middle of Pickett's Charge, the climactic clash on the final day of battle, at the new Museum and Visitor Center at the Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pa. (AP Photo)

Without an itinerary, it's easy to become overwhelmed by the vastness of Gettysburg's battlefield - a 6,000-acre expanse dotted with nearly 1,400 memorials and monuments to North America's bloodiest battle.

Park officials are hoping that the newly opened $103 million Museum & Visitor Center at the Pennsylvania national military park will give visitors a better starting point for exploring the site where Union armies beat back Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's assault on northern territory, and where Abraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech.

The complex is a red and gray stone structure reminiscent of a 19th century barn and covering the equivalent of 2 1/2 football fields. In the lobby, an orientation theater will show a three-minute video that provides an overview of the museum, battlefield and town and advises visitors on how to plan their itineraries.

Visitors can also buy tickets to a 22-minute feature film, "A New Birth of Freedom," designed to give them a more vivid sense of the battle's sights and sounds, as well as its aftermath.

The museum has 11 galleries arranged in chronological order, placing both the battle and the Civil War in the context of American history. Featured artifacts include the door to abolitionist John Brown's jail cell in Harpers Ferry, W. Va., field camp equipment used by Lee, and a display of artillery shell fragments that illustrates the intensity of the firepower that bombarded Confederate troops during Pickett's Charge.

"It certainly will provide [people] with a much better understanding, and I hope appreciation, for the courage and sacrifice that these men and women displayed at this time in history," said Paul Shevchuk, a park museum specialist.

Interactive touches - both high- and low-tech - are scattered throughout the museum.

Visitors can touch a replica of slave shackles and find out for themselves how heavily a soldier's backpack weighed him down. Using touch-screen computers, they can learn how to recognize bugle calls, decode signal corps flag messages, and locate battlefield monuments.

Other amenities include multipurpose classrooms, a bookstore and gift shop, and a "refreshment saloon" whose menu includes Civil War-era fare such as hardtack, a hard biscuit made of flour, salt and water and known to resist spoiling as long it was kept dry.

And for hard-core historians, a library and reading room containing 6,800 volumes, including 800 rare books, will be open by appointment.