We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high;
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
If you are approaching Gettysburg for the first time you cannot
help but admire those even swells that stretch away from South
Mountain like an emerald sea. No doubt you will begin to wonder
where the town is situated as you advance. Numerous low ridges
are crossed and at last the famous town lies before you.
What a charming situation it has! Vast waves of undulating
meadow and farm land appear with fields of gleaming grain and
clamps of elm, oak and maple to break its smoothly flowing
billows. Farther away rise higher treeless ridges or wooded
slopes, but all alike are smoothly flowing.
Looking out over the land in a northwestern direction on a
bright day you can see South Mountain, "forerunner of the
sierrated Alleghanies," looming up between the town and
Cumberland Valley. Back of it the serried ranks of the
Alleghanies rise in hazy indistinctness and blend imperceptibly
with the blue along the far horizon.
You will soon discover the two ridges that are so important from
a military point of view.
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