One Man's Introduction to the Civil War

From the June 30, 2013, PhillyBurbs.com "150 years ago: the battle that saved the Union" by Jerry Jones.

He was introduced to the Civil War back in 1938, when Sister Mary Lambert at Our Mother of Sorrows School would read tales of heroics from "The Boys in Blue" and "The Boys in Gray." She had had relatives fight in the war.

Then, his maternal grandmother Sarah Laughrey Dillon, who came to the United States in the 1890s from Ireland, would show him a photo of her uncle who came to the United States as a young boy in the 1840s, attended Villanova College and was an officer in the 116th Pennsylvania, part of the famed Irish Brigade and fought at Gettysburg.

Then, there was the 75th anniversary of the battle July 1-3, 1938, attended by some 8,000 members of both armies in a week-long ceremony. Their average age then was 94, much like our World War II veterans now. They had a three-mile parade, heard a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and shook hands across the Stone Wall at Bloody Angle.

In July 1963, Jerry Jones introduced his own kids to Gettysburg at its centennial, only this time, the soldiers were re-enactors.

Carrying On the Tradition. I Wonder If His Kids Took Their Kids to Gettysburg? --Old Secesh