Gettysburg: The Town
Pick just a couple of the numerous museums in town and follow the Travel Council's fourteen-block downtown walking tour for a sense of the history of the place. The National Civil War Wax Museum , 297 Steinwehr Ave (summer daily 9am-8.15pm; rest of year daily 9am-4.15pm; closed weekdays Jan-Feb; $5; tel 717/334-6245), uses dreadful dummies in its displays on the lead-up to the Civil War, the Underground Railroad for escapee slaves, abolitionist John Brown, and the famous Southern belle spies Rose Greenhow and Belle Boyd. Across the National Cemetery in the battlefield, there are yet more dummies in the Hall of Presidents and Their First Ladies , 504 Baltimore St (daily: June-Aug 9am-9pm; Sept 9am-7pm; Oct, Nov & March-May 9am-5pm; closed Dec-Feb; $5.95; tel 717/334-5717), complete with pearls of presidential wisdom and stirring patriotic music. The only civilian to die in the battle, twenty-year-old Jennie Wade, was killed by a stray bullet as she made bread for the Union troops in her sister's kitchen. The Jennie Wade House , next to the Gettysburg Tour Center on Baltimore Street (daily: June-Sept 9am-9pm; Oct-Nov & Mar-May 9am-7pm; closed Dec-Feb; $5.95; tel 717/334-4100), looks exactly as it did on July 3, 1863, with bullet holes in the front door and on the bedpost, an artillery shell hole ripped through the wall adjoining the neighboring house, and a macabre model of Jennie's corpse lying under a sheet in the cellar.President Eisenhower, who retired to Gettysburg, is commemorated to the west of the park at the Eisenhower National Historic Site , where his Georgian-style mansion holds an array of memorabilia. The site is accessible only on shuttle bus tours from the National Park Visitor Center in Taneytown (daily 9am-4pm; $5.25; tel 717/334-1124).
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