‘Retreat’ From Gettysburg Event Is Oct. 8, 9
By Deborah Fitts
October 2005
WILLIAMSPORT, Md. — “Grace Under Fire: Williamsport and the Retreat From Gettysburg,” is on track for Oct. 8 and 9 with a motorized convoy and a series of historical walks and talks commemorating the retreat of the Confederate wounded after the battle of Gettysburg.
Organizer Rick Lank of the nonprofit Forest Glen Commonwealth said several dozen reenactors are expected along with modern-day emergency workers, plus Civil War authors and historians.
A feature of the two-day event will be a “Commemorative Car Caravan” from Cashtown, west of Gettysburg, to Williamsport. The 42-mile trip will approximate the route taken by Confederate Gen. John Imboden in his successful effort to evacuate more than 10,000 wounded soldiers to safety. Lank said Imboden’s wagon train stretched for 17 miles across the rolling countryside.
At Williamsport Lank said the dual themes of the Imboden retreat and modern-day disaster-preparedness would give visitors an unusual look at how two eras 140 years apart respond to major human crises.
Visitors will also “have an appreciation of what it was like to take care of so many men,” Lank said, and they will learn the importance of the battle at Williamsport when wounded men and wagoneers successfully staved off a Federal attack.
The weekend will include a reception at the Cashtown Inn, open to the public, on Friday, Oct. 7, beginning at 4:30 p.m. Author Kent Masterson Brown, who recently published Retreat From Gettysburg, will be on hand. The convoy will get under way at 10 a.m. the following morning, with participating vehicles marked by a yellow hospital flag.
The “Living History Festival” at Williamsport on Saturday and Sunday will include reenactors, several members of the “Lee’s Lieutenants” living-history group, representatives of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, the American Red Cross and local emergency officials, and Brown and other historians.
More information on the event is available online at (866) 588-6503; www.grace-under-fire.us.
