Friday, September 30, 2011

The Civil War Tour - Day 1

Sorry for not posting in so long everybody! We were on a Civil War Tour which was put on by our good friends, the Horns. I learned a lot and had a great time. Because we were gone for a week, it's too much to put in one post. So I'll do a day by day overview in separate posts.

On the first day of the tour, we went to Fort William McHenry, which, for those of you who don't know, was the fort that was fired upon by British ships. It was here that Francis Scott Key wrote the famous "Star Spangled Banner". Mr. Horn talked about how the war of 1812 ties into the Civil War. This was helpful as we saw God's providential hand in America's history.

We then went to the U.S.S. Constellation, which just showed us how a frigate ship would look like back then.

Then, we went to Arlington Cemetery. This is where Robert E. Lee's house is located. It also is the grave to 300,000 military casualties from each war, ranging from the Civil War to military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is also the location of the tomb of the unknown soldier. The inscription on the grave is"

HERE RESTS IN
HONORED GLORY
AN AMERICAN
SOLDIER
KNOWN BUT TO GOD

There is a soldier who patrols the grave 24/7, no matter the weather.

At the end of the day, we were all pretty beat. It was POURING at Arlington so we were all soaked. We were thankful for the long bus ride home, which gave us time to contemplate what we had learned, and also to have some good fellowship.

If you want to see the pictures from the tour, you can view all of them here.

Thursday, September 29, 2011