Gettysburg is a crucial place during American Civil War. The dicisive turning point in the war came in the first week of July when the Confederacy suffered two crushing defeats in the West and the East, and Gettysburg is one of them. Also, Abraham Lincoln used to give a famous speech in Gettysburg, the Gettysburg Address.
Students visited the Gettysburg museum and visitors' center in the morning. As soon as we entered into the museum, we saw a big screen on one side of the hall. The film described the terrible living condition of slaves in the south. The cruelty of slavery was depicted vividly in the Harrits Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. This novel make more and more northerners furious about south and slavery. This was the blink of war. As we went into the museum, we could see a lot of stuff during the battle time, including jail door, notice posted on street at that time recruiting volunteer armies, different weapons like rifles, the uniforms of soldiers of Union and Confederacy, letters and diary of soldiers ... Students could imagine the experiences of soldiers during the Civil War by looking at these details.
In the afternoon, students visited the Gettysburg battle field. The field was huge, so we travelled through it by taking the schoolbus. We had a tour guide on our bus, as the bus travelling through the battle field, the tour guide explained the monuments and buildings around us. Since we had seen a movie the day before we went to the trip to Gettysburg, we were all excited to see all the cannons and tree clumps in the movie we had seen before. We saw the Pickett's charge, the little round top, the cemetery ridge... Every thing was so vivid and historical. We could hardly believe that there used to be corpses of soldiers and bloods everywhere on the field we see today.
This trip helps students have better understanding of the history of Civil War they learned on class. History is more than forcing students memorize all the events listed on the textbook to make sure they can answer all the questions in the tests. In fact, history tells people something they should never forget, and reminds people to avoid making the same mistake again in the future.