GDG- Re: I found out it was simply nonexistent i

[DShultz180 at aol.com]

> <<Today with the micro studies and the scholarship being shared on the 
> Internet, such elusive details are not readily available.>>
> 
Dennis,

Finding such elusive information depends on how far one wants to bury 
one's-self in a micro-study. It can't be had overnight nor by reading and rereading 
the O. R's. Pfanz, Coddington, the GB Magazine, etc. Partaking in a GDG 
discussion and or lurking will not do it either. It takes lots of precious time and 
funding to search out such elusive information. One cannot simply study the 
Battle at Gettysburg from a den, a library or computer desk. One must truly 
understand the battlefield and approaches, vital and non-vital.

 All the information on the 2nd U. S at Gettysburg has not been published nor 
is it readily available.   With that said, however, most can be had if one 
knows where to look and whom to ask. Many personal letters from men in that 
battery exist in institutions that are indeed public. Many post war letters were 
compiled and published in a cast of post war newspapers and magazines that 
sprung up in the 1870s. Men such as Roder, Quinn, Killern and Waterous, all 
published vivid accounts that fit together when compiled. That, along with Calef's 
many accounts make the 2nd's Gettysburg campaign very relevant and not to 
elusive.

Still, there is much elusive information that has yet to be published. 
Richard Rollins and myself happened across the private papers and photographs of Lt. 
Davidson,4th U.S. Batt B, when one of that officers present day kin 
graciously supplied us with everything he wrote home about (She lives nearby and had 
heard of our Civil War work. Small world).   Davidson was the lieutenant who 
commanded Cooper's left-half battery at GB July First. Placed between the pike 
and grading the information made available by this gracious woman will allow 
myself and David Wieck to recall incidents that only an eyewitness can elaborate 
upon. There is a stockpile of public information that has yet to be openly 
published. It's not elusive-just hasn't been explored.

The GDG has been a long time reference center for me. I recently opened the 
GDG map room on line to discover an 1872[?] map depicting the lane that once 
ran from Sach's Covered   Bridge, east, across a small stone bridge spanning 
Willoughby Run, up the Emmitsburg Road Rise intersecting that byway near present 
day West Confederate Avenue. This one-time rural crossroad, a shortcut no 
less, was the avenue Cabell and Alexander used when they deployed July 2nd. 

I agree, the GDG has played an important part in the better understanding a 
huge puzzle that for all its worth is still lacking many pieces.

It's good to back with the GDG ...

Dave S.