Gettysburg Semester 2009 - Washington, D.C.

This Friday, we embarked on our final Gettysburg Semester field trip – to Washington, D. C. I hadn’t been to Washington since early high school, and have desperately missed being in a city, so I really looked forward to it.

We began the day in Lafayette Square in front of the White House, where Dr. Guelzo explained how the area appeared during Lincoln’s administration. As he discussed Stanton in the Treasury Department and Lincoln’s frequent visits to Seward’s house nearby, we saw a helicopter depart from the White House and some apparently important visitors arrive. Exciting!

We then made our way to Ford’s Theater, where we spent some time in their downstairs museum. There, they had some interesting artifacts, including the gun John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate Lincoln and the suit the president was wearing when Booth did so. We then left the museum itself and made our way upstairs to peek into the Presidential Box, in which Lincoln sat when Booth shot him. After listening to a brief ranger program, we crossed the street and went through the Peterson House, where we were able to see the rooms in which Mary Lincoln awaited news about her husband, Secretary of War Stanton briefly ran the nation, and Lincoln ultimately died.

After lunch at the Hard Rock Café, we concluded the day with a visit to the Lincoln Memorial. Looking across the mall from the Lincoln Memorial was certainly an apt way to end the trip – and the last of the semester.