Gettysburg

Not all of the local Civil War re-enactors went to Gettysburg to mark the 130th anniversary of the famous battle of July 1863. One group went to Montgomery Cemetery in Norristown to visit the graves of four area Civil War heroes: William Bainbridge, Samuel Selah, Samuel Zook and Winfield Scott Hancock. Selah, Zook and Hancock all fought at Gettysburg; Selah and Zook died there.

Since the state Gaming Control Board in 2006 rejected a proposed slots parlor several miles from the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, it's hard to see how a full-blown casino just a half-mile south of the hallowed ground is an improvement. Former Conrail chairman David M. LeVan is back with another proposal to build a casino near where thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers fought and died during the pivotal battle. Like his failed bid for a gambling license, LeVan's new proposal has rekindled the dispute between civic leaders, merchants, Civil War buffs, and conservationists over whether gambling can coexist with the historic site.

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, the Union and Confederate Armies met at the crossroads town of Gettysburg, where they fought the decisive battle of the Civil War. Beginning Friday and continuing through Sunday, thousands of Civil War buffs will stage the most ambitious Civil War re-enactment ever. Today through Monday, The Inquirer will provide reports of this event, including dispatches written as they would have been in those turbulent, fateful days during the summer of 1863.

The large and vocal opposition to the proposed casino in Gettysburg should be enough reason for the Gaming Control Board to deny a license to that historic town. But if the gaming board needs further convincing, it should look to the supporters of the project. That's because they failed to make a compelling case that a casino would truly benefit Gettysburg. Casino supporters argue that the gambling hall would produce major economic benefits for Gettysburg. Granted, the casino will generate tax revenue for the state and county.

Watching "Gettysburg," Ted Turner's epic-length saga of perhaps the most pivotal moment in American history, you can't help wondering . . . Is the Phillies' right-handed platoon better than its left-handed platoon? Why do pitchers walk base-stealers like Otis Nixon when he hits less than .270? Could Dave Hollins and Mitch Williams have a catch without hurting someone? Yes, the mind does wander during "Gettysburg," a sluggish FOUR-HOUR rehash of the famous Civil War battle pitting Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Gen. George G. Meade, who looks suspiciously like Oscar Goldman from "The Six Million Dollar Man. " As you've probably heard, "Gettysburg" originally was intended for television, and will wind up there eventually as a five-hour mini-series.

The charge seemed to come out of nowhere and caught video stores unaware. "We were blindsided," said Frank Slugaski of Clark, N.J., a franchise operator of 27 Blockbuster Video stores. "It was totally unexpected. " The sudden attack left a sobering sight in its wake: empty shelves. Slugaski's copies of Gettysburg were gone with the wind, as it were. And the rout wasn't caused by rental customers alone, for whom he had stocked about 400 copies throughout his stores. Surprisingly, some 60 of his customers had bought the video outright - with a price tag of about $90. A similar phenomenon occurred at Movies Unlimited in Philadelphia, where an employee in the Castor Avenue store said he saw four customers walk in within an hour of one another and buy the double-cassette tape soon after its March 16 release.

Conestoga's Joe Waterman, the Central League's most valuable player in boys' basketball in 1994, has decided to play basketball for Gettysburg College next season. According to Waterman, a shooting guard who averaged 21 points a game last season for the Pioneers, it wasn't just one thing that made him choose Gettysburg - it was everything about the school. "It seemed like the perfect fit," said Waterman, who plans to major in hotel and restaurant management. "I had a great time when I visited there.

Your run-of-the-mill high school history class doesn't prepare you for the wonders of Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, the story of the Civil War battle at Gettysburg. This book is a shock: It makes the battle fascinating. I could have listened to my high school teachers blather on forever about how the generals from each side were friends. But it just didn't sink in until Shaara placed me at Gen. Robert E. Lee's side, and I saw him get almost teary over the death of a general - from the other side.

Gettysburg softball player Shannon Kiry, a Cinnaminson graduate, was a second-team all-Centennial Conference selection this season. Kiry set a program record with 18 wins and had the conference's second-best ERA (1.14). Senior pitcher/first baseman Constance DeSalvo (Sacred Heart) was a first-team New Jersey Athletic Conference selection. Through Thursday, DeSalvo was hitting .410 in conference games and .352 overall. On the mound, she was 11-6 with a 0.85 ERA. She has set school records this season with 140 strikeouts and five shutouts.

Twenty-five years had passed, but the awful images of death lingered in the minds of the aging veterans as they boarded a Philadelphia train for their solemn journey back to the battlefield. It was the summer of 1888 and the surviving members of the 90th Pennsylvania Volunteers, in colorful Mackinaw helmets and silk commemorative badges, were following tattered battle flags and guidons to Gettysburg. Once there, with patriotic music, fiery oration and many tears, they dedicated monuments to fallen comrades and began a tradition of annual pilgrimages to the battleground, the site 25 years earlier of the Civil War's bloodiest clash.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Three weeks ago, Rick Santorum chose this town to give a defiant speech, linking his struggle against Mitt Romney to "the things that the people in this battlefield just down the road fought for. " Recalling the blood shed at Gettysburg, he exhorted more than 1,000 supporters: "That's why we must go out and fight this fight. " Santorum may have thought he was George Meade rallying the Union forces, but he turned out to be leading Pickett's charge — the disastrous Confederate offensive here in which Gen. George Pickett lost half his division and the war turned against the South.

Former St. Joseph's standout Pat Carroll (Hatboro-Horsham) will be inducted into the school's Basketball Hall of Fame on April 13. The 2011-12 Hawks will also be honored that evening. Carroll, who starred for the Hawks from 2001 to 2005, is remembered as one of the finest perimeter shooters in St. Joseph's history. He holds the school career records for three-pointers (294), three-point percentage (44.5), and three-point attempts (661). He was the 2004-05 Atlantic Ten co-player of the year, an AP honorable-mention all-American, and the most outstanding player in the A-10 championship and the Big Five.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - Like another insurgent army in the decisive battle of the Civil War outside town nearly 149 years ago, Rick Santorum did not break through the lines Tuesday, losing the Illinois Republican primary to Mitt Romney. It is too soon, of course, to say how pivotal Illinois will be in deciding the fight for the 2012 GOP nomination, but Santorum clearly missed a needed chance to prove he could win in a state that was not tailor-made for him - northern and industrial, dominated by moderate suburban and secular voters rather than rural evangelical ones.

GETTYSBURG - Bobblehead dolls of the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln have been pulled from sale at the Gettysburg National Military Park visitor center bookstore, officials said Tuesday. The dolls of John Wilkes Booth with a handgun were removed from shelves Saturday, a day after a reporter for Hanover's Evening Sun newspaper asked about them. "On rare occasions, there's an item that might cause concern, and obviously the bobbleheads appeared to be doing that," Gettysburg Foundation spokeswoman Dru Anne Neil said Tuesday.

GETTYSBURG - Workers cutting up a fallen tree at Gettysburg National Military Park came across some Civil War artifacts when their chain saw struck bullets buried in the trunk. The bullets were discovered last week while a crew was cutting through the oak tree on Culp's Hill, the site of intense fighting on July 2 and 3, 1863, Park Superintendent Bob Kirby said Tuesday. Two sections of the trunk were removed and will be treated to clean out insects and mold before they will be added to the park museum's collection, officials said.

As the Gettysburg women's lacrosse team was traveling back from winning the college's first NCAA Division III championship late Sunday night just outside the south-central Pennsylvania town a police escort swung in front of the team bus and led it back to campus. Carol Cantele, Gettysburg's coach, said yesterday she and her assistants knew what awaited the team, but the players didn't. "As we rounded the corner of the president's house they could see the lights at our field were on," Cantele said.

In the same week that Civil War reenactors marked the first shots fired at Fort Sumter 150 years ago, it was a welcome coincidence that Pennsylvania gambling regulators sounded the death knell for a casino near Gettysburg. The decision Thursday by the state Gaming Control Board to grant a casino license to a Pittsburgh-area resort - rather than one proposed a half-mile from Gettysburg National Military Park - was the second time a Gettysburg-area casino was rejected. It should be the last.

HARRISBURG - For the first time, Civil War buffs can now walk the land on Chambersburg Pike west of Gettysburg where Confederate and Union troops locked in a ferocious struggle at the start of the epic battle. The 95-acre tract, scene of major fighting on July 1, 1863, has been made part of Gettysburg National Military Park at last. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday - weeks before the start of a series of events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War - that the former country club land had been bought by the National Park Service from a conservation group.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Friday announced the addition of a 95-acre parcel at Gettysburg National Military Park, saying it caps nearly two decades of efforts to acquire the property. What had most recently been a nine-hole golf course at the former Gettysburg County Club will henceforth be known by its historical name, the Emanuel Harman Farm. Major fighting occurred there on July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War and a key victory for the Union forces.

The Civil War Trust and National Parks Conservation Association needs a lesson on the facts ("For Pa. casino, a civics lesson from Wal-Mart," Friday). It compares the attempt to locate a Wal-Mart on a Southern Civil War battlefield with our proposal to place a resort casino outside of Gettysburg, two miles from the Maryland border. Fact: Unlike the Wal-Mart in Virginia, our proposed Mason-Dixon Resort wouldn't be located on an inch of the mammoth 6,000-acre battlefield. It wouldn't even be in Gettysburg.