"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863." So starts a powerful passage by William Faulkner in "Intruder in the Dust." The Mississippi novelist and poet poignantly painted the scene of dry-mouthed young men anticipating battle. But the Confederate attack, known in the annals of history as Pickett's Charge, ended about a mile away in failure, gray-clad troops blunted by determined Union troops at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those young boys recalled by Faulkner were stopped at the Angle, a stone wall considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy -- perhaps the last chance for victory in the U.S. Civil War. Instead, the Union prevailed at Gettysburg, a turning point in the four-year war that claimed at least 620,000 lives.
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Gettysburg expects between 200,000 and 300,000 visitors
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They will watch re-enactments, visit national military park
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It's the 150th anniversary of the momentous Civil War battle
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Much has changed since previous commemorations
Gettysburg, then a bucolic town of 2,400 souls, found itself directly drawn into the @placeholder during the first days of July 1863.