Fifty years past the bloody end of the Battle of Gettysburg, over fifty thousand Union and Confederate veterans converged to set camp again in Pennsylvania. The old men came back to see where they had stared death in the eye, and left their youth behind. July 3rd was another sweltering hot Pennsylvania day when the Union veterans again took their positions on Cemetery Ridge, and waited for their old adversaries to emerge from the woods of Seminary Ridge. At 3 in the afternoon, the Rebels charged again, but this time they moved with difficulty through the waist high grass – with canes and crutches and prosthetic limbs – some could fit their old uniforms and most could not – but still the bearded old men kept on coming. The youngest veteran was 61 years old, and the senior member claimed to be 112. Slowly they approached the stone fence at Bloody Angle, and some of the codgers croaked out the rebel yell when they were “surprised” by a group of Union men from the old Philadelphia Brigade. There were those that had feared a bitter confrontation might ensue, but where once they had thrust bayonets at each other, the men clasped hands across the stone wall. They ceremoniously exchanged flags, and some fell into each other’s arms, weeping, while others just sat down in silence and looked sadly across the hallowed ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yt7qvuHSg6U