The Gettysburg debate is interesting, albeit a tangent, since everyone agrees it's a good place to visit. It's been decades since I was there, which is a shame. Anyway, I am fascinated that the Army website has different numbers than every other source I can find. I think it must have been an error on their part. While the Army would know, that doesn't mean that the person responsible for the website didn't accidentally list the total casualties as deaths (since the 51K number lines up nicely with those, it makes it more likely, especially since the total combatants also matches other sources pretty closely), and then nobody checked, and the write-up was based on the chart. But other than researching now on-line, I have no independent knowledge on this one. My guess is that the Army number is wrong, they have more credibility than any one other site, but there simply are too many other places that all agree, and are each nearly as credible, to find it likely that 51K deaths is right. It is possible that both are right, and they simply are defining the scope of the battle differently. However, I looked at several places that broke it down, and they used as expansive a definition of the Battle of Gettysburg as I could see likely. The sentence " Almost as many Soldiers were killed, wounded or declared missing from the Battle of Gettysburg than during the entire Vietnam Conflict" from the website you posted, ny, is rather implausible, since there were about 35% more casualties from the Vietnam war (58K+ killed, 153K+ wounded, and almost 2500 MIA/POW) than the total number of participants in the Battle of Gettysburg (that website says a little over 157K). I don't blame you for trusting them, I would have, too, until I did some digging, as the discrepancies from Margaret's sources' numbers were too large that I was curious. Anyone else find or know anything that would shed any light on this puzzle?

kjaerlighet7
Folks here are often asked to keep their paragraphs short. Reading a screen is quite different from reading print on the page. I for one consider it courteous when a poster includes frequent paragraph breaks.

Telling us that you read Proust and Joyce is just silly. Please shorten your paragraphs to give our eyes a break, and make your information offerings more accessible.

>>janis, if you're too lazy to read my posts, don't respond to them, it really is a waste of time to pull something out of context. And no, paragraph breaks aren't rationed, but I don't put them in just because someone has a short attention span and can't read more than a couple sentences at a time.actually pull out Proust and Joyce? Really?

janisj: yes, yes he did. Faulkner, too.

Well I have seen the same 50,000 plus number in other places, including well-known historians.

And the fact that they include a reason for the very high number of casualties (the fact that the infantry marched straight into the gun - both artillery and rifles, which was an old style tactic especially ineffective in light of the advances in weaponry) provides the rationale for a very high rate of fatalities.

I'm not an expert on this - but did find these numbers in other places as well as an explanation for it.

Sorry - especially noteworthy is "Pickett's charge" in which a force of well over 15K men marched straight into the union guns - in which the loss of life was unthinkable. All 3 of his general were killed and of his 13 colonels 7 were killed and the other 6 wounded. It is estimated that more than 60% of his troops died in that one part of the battle.

schultzandco, folks seem to have hijacked your thread, so take the actual information that has been given and come back with questions on portions of your trip that you want help on.

Well, NYtraveler, emalloy is right - we have wasted enough of these good folks time with what is arcane trivia. I give up on trying to get you the correct information. For whatever reason, you persist in ignoring the facts and sticking to your incorrect information. (By the way, Pickett's charge was about 13,000 men, about half of whom became CASUALTIES - i.e., killed, wounded or capatured.)

I will leave you with a pertinent quote from the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

Texas
- other than Presidential libraries, capitol, Buddy Holley museum, Nimitz museum, etc., there is ONE MUST do/visit.

It is the best in US. !!!!!!!!!!!

Worth the stop
- don't eat breakfast - save your stomach volume
http://www.roundrockdonuts.com/

Vaga

I am just trying to figure out where some of the suggestions are and how to fit them in the overall plan. Thank you all for your suggestions.

RVvagabond - that looks very bad for the waistline.

I will definitely be asking some more questions as I try to work it out.

No, janis, I don't know everything, but I do know some things. And I definitely know from personal experience and research that renting one car for the whole trip is almost always cheaper than renting multiple one-way rentals, unless the amount of time in one place where you don't need a car is the majority of the trip (even if split into two or three). Coming from another country does change some of the rates and considerations, but if you had read further, there are many reasons to believe that it won't change that fact. And the length of time on this specific site has nothing to do with what I do and don't know, there isn't a single thing discussed in this thread that is particular to this site.

You turned it into whining about my writing style, instead of anything having to do with helping schultz. You have repeatedly commented on my posts, despite having not read them, and it shows, since you have had to say things repeatedly because you do not know what I actually said, other than clips you pulled completely out of context. If you can't handle long paragraphs, just don't read it, but then don't waste everyone's time responding. What are you attempting to accomplish, other than trying to make the conversation about you and me, instead of schultz's trip? We both know pieces of things that could be very helpful to them, but rather than trying to combine, you want to make it about us.

And tuscan, of course who I have read is unimportant. I wasn't picking based on who was most impressive, or anything (the list would have been different if it were, in case you were wondering, especially since merely reading something isn't all that impressive if you didn't understand it, and I will freely admit that I needed help from other sources to understand Ulysses, and even with help, I can't say I remotely understood Finnegan's Wake, I'm not claiming personal merit for having read them, only enough familiarity to personally attest to THEIR literary merit, despite paragraphs that are many times longer than all 14 of my previous paragraphs put together), but of those I've read recently, those had the longest paragraphs, they each have many paragraphs that are multiple pages long, and yet they were examples of very good writing. While sometimes it is more difficult to read on a screen than on paper, it should not make much difference, I read one of those books on a computer, and it did not cause me any more problems. My point was for that a competent reader, which janis clearly isn't for reasons beyond her whining about length, what is important is not how long the paragraph is, but whether it's the right length for what is being said. A good writer will not put a paragraph break after x number of lines, but where the transition should be, some paragraphs will be very short, others will be very long. I don't claim to be a good writer, but criticizing purely based on length when one has admittedly not read it to even see if the length was appropriate is nothing more than laziness. I say it again, if janis wants to debate on the car rentals, that's fine, but then read what I have written before criticizing. If not, then why waste time with responses that are not at all helpful, raising points that have already been addressed? Short paragraphs is a good general guideline, but it's dependent on circumstances. But reading a post before criticizing it is a hard and fast rule.

schultzandco - If you go straight to Anaheim when you leave that would be a good time to drive to San Diego. There's lots of history here.
http://www.oldtownsandiegoguide.com/history.html

http://www.oldtownsandiego.org/

Historic Lighthouse
http://www.nps.gov/cabr/historycultu...lighthouse.htm
http://www.nps.gov/cabr/index.htm

Missions
http://www.missionsandiego.com/
http://www.sanluisrey.org/

Wyatt Earp lived here for a time
http://gaslamp.org/wyatt-earp
http://gaslampfoundation.org/

Ballboa Park is worth a visit and on the same property as the Zoo
http://www.balboapark.org/

I don't know if military history is of any interest
http://www.midway.org/
http://www.sdmaritime.org/

If you have any other questions about San Diego let us know. Maybe in a new thread with San Diego in the title. It sounds like you have a fabulous trip planned.

I do recall driving across Texas as a kid. Boy, my family count not wait to cross the state line after all the dry & bleak hours of a lot of nothing

Margaret, while I agree that it's arcane trivia, and probably not very important in this context, at least that discussion isn't an utter waste of time, it is interesting that different sources that one might think were credible have such different information. I, at least, would be interested to see if it can be resolved, assuming schulz doesn't mind a tangent in this thread. I'd be very interested in an explanation of why the numbers are so different, if one could be found. I'm not sure how we could figure it out, and if we can't, then yes, we're just going around in circles. But if anyone does have anything that would get us closer to an explanation of why the numbers are so different, I would think that would be worth posting. It'd most likely be ny, since the sources I'm seeing agree with your numbers. That isn't to say that they are right, since one place that has wrong numbers can be propagated to everywhere else (as very little is done based on independent research, most are quoting somewhere else). It's more likely your numbers are right, but not certain. I'd like more information, if anyone has it...

I am not sure what your plans are based upon the numerous offerings of advice however if you do split up your travels and car rentals as a Texan I would skip over this state. While there are things to do the amount of boring travel is not in say economics a marginal benefit. I would suggest flying from New Orleans to either El Paso to make a visit to Carlsbad/Big Bend National Park to start another journey or fly to Santa Fe/ABQ to continue your journey. If you decide to go to Texas, the Hill Country/Austin/San Antonio area would be a good three days to most of that area, but to me on a journey such as this those three days plus three days of driving to and from that area are not worth the time/trouble.

If you do, please let me know and I can give a possible itenary for the southern route of Texas coming from New Orleans area

Sorry to hijack. For Gettysburg I don;t have nay other/better sources than the US Army website and a discussion that I saw (some years ago) that quoted the same numbers (and the comparison to Viet Nam) - presumably form the same source. The only explanation I have seen if the one above about 18th century infantry tactics (just walking into the guns in a line) used against much improved weaponry (accuracy, distance and speed of reloading) that had been developed in the years before the war.

Well, ny, I just thought to look up Antietam, which is famous for being the bloodiest single-day battle, and that only had under 3,700 dead, and about 22,700 casualties. Gettysburg was 3 days, so the total was more, but I think that each of your sources mixed up casualties and deaths. That seems the most likely, but I can't say for sure. But, again, I can see why you took the Army's numbers at face value, I'm surprised that they would have messed it up, too, but it does happen.

It's about a 15 hour drive from New Orleans to El Paso. The only other part of the tentative itinerary that rivals that for long and boring is the drive from the Rockies to the Twin Cities (which is longer depends on where you exit the Rockies - if you bypass the Rockies, the boringness is longer, to Wisconsin, or if that is also bypassed, Chicago, as northern Illinois outside the cities might be the most boring place in the US, worse even than TX). Other than the dubious thrill of some of the longest bridges in the US (1-4 and 6 are all in the state of LA), which go over swampland, there is virtually nothing between NO and El Paso, except Houston (which to me is meh), San Antonio (which is definitely worth a stop if driving that way anyway, but might not be worth a detour), and Big Bend. Flying would be faster, but more expensive, and the amount of time saved isn't as high as one might think, since flying has lots of delays. But it is a judgment call. If one is going to break up the trip and fly, I agree that those two places are where one would do it. If it was me, I'd just drive, but I mind that far less than most.

Yes, San Antonio to El Paso is a long but doable day. As you approach closer to El Paso, the scenery to the south (Mexico)becomes mountainous and scenic. Closer to San Antonio is pretty flat, and going towards Houston is really flat. (The traffic in Houston can be truly horrendous, by the way.) That's where we normally broke up, which gave us a chance to visit relatives and maybe visit the Alamo, Riverwalk, etc.

Between Houston and our home (Orlando area), we usually break around Mobile. The bay is a welcome sight, and you could probably find some affordable lodging and perhaps some interesting things to see.

I am guessing you wouldn't be planning on a solid drive between Miami and Houston because that would be kind of crazy), but you could work that segment a few interesting ways and give some time to see some of Florida that is often missed.

Just try to find a time to drive through Houston that falls well outside commute hours, if you can. Oh, and in between San Antonio and El Paso - not much of anywhere to stop to break that up, so just drive.

I would like to suggest that you reconsider Chicago. I'm disappointed people would suggest you skip it. It has a completely different vibe than the east coast cities - while NYC is a global city, Chicago is a great American city (metropolitan but friendly because of its midwestern location). It's in the top 3 cities in the US (along with NYC and LA). I really think you'd be missing out if you skip it!

I would suggest you skip Concord and Lexington (I think I saw those towns mentioned upthread) in favor of Chicago. With all of the war history on the east coast, it will be easy for you to get burned out on it before you even make it to Gettysburg (which would be a shame, since Gettysburg is incredible, in my opinion).

bookmarking for the Ormond Beach trail.

If history is your focus consider adding Virginia to your travel plans. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, Civil War Battlefields... also homes of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. All of which are feasible day trips.