"Gettysburg Regress" by John Summers

John Summers describes the different opinions of people on how they wanted the battlefield to be restored. The goal of the people was for people to truly feel like they were in the battle in Gettysburg.       

            Summers is credible because he witnessed the trees piled on top of each other and he worked at the Gettysburg battlefield as a tour guide.

            Summers talks about what Gettysburg might have looked like during the battle. This may not appear relevant to the context of the essay since this essay was written in the 2000s, however, the past dates that Summers speaks of is important to the text since the essay is about restoring the current Gettysburg to what is originally looked like during the 1800s.

            Summers’s purpose of this essay was to argue that people are focusing on the unnecessary parts of restoring Gettysburg. People running Gettysburg are more focused on the “authenticity” of the place rather than understanding the history; the people should stop millions of dollars trying to remake the scenes during the battle.

            This essay is more towards the people who have a deeper understanding of Gettysburg and feel as passionate about the restoration process as much as Summers.

            Summers uses lots of imagery in his essay such as, “…we would need to lie with soldiers as they bled to death, groaning in pain; rotting corpses with missing limbs…”(216). No matter how much money people invest into rebuilding Gettysburg into its original state, it would never be truly the same. All the money put into the project would be a waste.

            John Summers accomplished his purpose by referring to many sources to back up his argument such as John Latschar, John Bachelder, President Roosevelt, etc. He talked about their views of what the battlefield should look like and their contributions to the project. Summers refers to past historical events that occurred in Gettysburg like in 1869, which was when the Katalysine Springs Hotel opened in Gettysburg. He wraps up his argument with one final point, “…if only they were less obsessed with authenticity and more inclined toward history” (217).

History vs Today- No one can perfectly recreate this exact moment; one can only try to understand as much as they can. (en.wikipedia.org )