JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

This picture was taken from along the south western area of the battlefield almost directly across from Little Round Top, one mile away, and shows Round Top hill to the South (left). It also shows the very open, and typical exposed terrain that both armies had to cross when attacking defended positions. Little Round top was the hill that both Armies, needed but neglected to occupy and defend when they both had the chance on July 1st. It overlooks the entire southern half of the battlefield which would have been within Cannon range. Early in day 2, General Warren, Chief Engineer, discovered that it was only occupied by a few Union Signal Corps troops; and he ordered some of his troops to defend the hill. Shortly afterwards a Texas brigade attacked. As that battle raged, the 20th Maine under Col. Joshua Chamberlain arrived in support. They beat back five attacks by Alabama troops and after running low on ammunition Col. Chamberlain ordered his survivors to fix their bayonets and attack. The ferocity of this attack drove the confederates from the hill and it then remained under union control.

This picture has also been processed with PSE 14 using the Auto Color and the Auto Haze Removal tools. The weather was not any better than yesterday.

After the war, then General Chamberlain, was elected President of Bowdoin College, ME and remained in that position until his death in the early 1900s; he had been a Professor at Bowdoin before the Civil War. Sometime back in the mid-1980s (I think) the Public Broadcasting Service (TV) in Boston made an excellent documentary of the Battle of Little Round Top; there must be copies out there somewhere, and if you are interested, it is excellent.

Little Round Top & Round Top

Lee Roman Loc: Lavalette, West Virginia

That's interesting history! A picture is worth a thousand words! Trying to visualize that brings a feeling of those people of that time, real people in a real time that left a mark on history. Thanks for the story!

angler Loc: StHelens England

Good photo and history,thanks for sharing..

Treepusher Loc: Kingston, Massachusetts

Excellent shot of the battlefield. Ken Burns series 'The Civil War' is a classic and also the movie 'Gettysburg' (Jeff Daniels as Joshua Chamberlain) did a great job of describing and showing the intensity of the fighting on Little Round Top, as well as Chamberlain's heroism.

Djedi

Very interesting story and photo. Just one issue- your sensor needs cleaning, I think.

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

Djedi, Thank you for looking and warning me about the sensor. I'm not an expert (far from it), but I think those spots may be mist that has condensed on the lens or even raindrops. The camera was being moved out of the A/C car into the weather all day, and it was a miserable day to be taking outdoor photos, and we've had few nice days since. I tried to clean this last photo and the ones I posted a few days ago with the PSE de-haze tool so some detail could be seen. Maybe I should have increased the strength. The next time we get a decent day, I'll take some shots for comparison. In the meantime, the following is the unprocessed JPEG photo.

Djedi

They look relatively "in focus" so they must be close to the sensor. Remember, you are probably focused at infinity, and if they were on the lens surface, they would only show up if you were focused at less than 3 feet or so. The sensor usually has a filter in front of it, and if an item is on that filter, it would look about like those spots in your photo do.
I have a sensor cleaning kit that makes it relatively easy to remove those.

https://www.adorama.com/cpuk2.html

and see instructions here:

https://www.adorama.com/alc/0013666/article/The-Secret-of-Effectively-and-Safely-Cleaning-Your-Digital-Camera-Sensor-Yourself

That should help you spend less time post processing!

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

Thank you again!

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I spent weeks traveling the battlefields I could find and get to in Virginia, but I didn't not get up to Gettysburg. I was amazed at how profoundly beautiful these fields are. And these were farmers' fields - fenced and worked. I found them all quite moving. This is an awesome image. Thank you so much for posting it.

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

AzPicLady, thanks for looking and I'm glad you enjoyed them. Sorry you were not able to get there; its only about 80 miles, as the crow flies, north of Manassas, & perhaps 60 from DC. We were surprised at how well the fields and fences were maintained and in some areas there is some heavy duty work being done. I believe some of the lands are still privately owned, but will end up in a National Parks Trust eventually. I don't know who (other than us) foots the bill for the maintenance, but the big sign at the Welcome Center describes the area as Military memorial.