GDG- Battlefield Tour Guides

[CWMHTours at aol.com]

This may rile some feathers and make a kerfluffle but I have  had a couple 
dozen LBG on my tourbuses at GTYSBG and have never really been very  
impressed by them.  Sure, the tourists love it.
 
But tourists don't know a cowpie from a horsepie.
 
But I sit there and look out the window and want to go  Hey!  Point that 
out!  What about that?  Point this  out.
 
I had a LBG once who only wanted to talk about about Daniel  Sickles  
shooting Philip Barton Key on Lafayette Square 75 mi away in  DC.  Meanwhile the 
bus is rolling past Oak Ridge and the Peach Orchid and  the guy was talking 
about P.B. Key.  As a matter of protocol and  courtesy you don't contradict 
another guide on a tour but I had to  repeatedly keep telling him discreetly 
to stay on topic.  Did no good  tho.  Didn't stop talking about it til the 
tour was over.  The tour co  provided the tip for the guy but I didn't want 
to give it to him.
 
I love the story....  I tell it a lot as a ghost story on  Lafayette 
Square.  One of my favorite stories.  But when LRT is  rolling by outside the bus 
window you should talk about that,  not Sickles  and Key.   
 
 
A  Loyal Neo-Anti Unionist,
Peter  

 
In a message dated 1/24/2012 9:36:47 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
jlawrence at kc.rr.com writes:

Esteemed  GDG Member Contributes:
No. The guides at Gettysburg are unique, they trace  their history back to 
the day after the battle.
The NPS inherited them  when they took over the park and there has been a 
partnership of sorts  ever since.
Can you imagine the any bureaucracy recruiting an outside guide  service, 
officially sanctioned, to run free across the  property.

The other parks do provide tours though, which can be spotty,  but 
generally 
good.
They do have these NPS tours at  Gettysburg.

In a perfect world, every battlefield guide everywhere  would be a retired 
infantry officer with a degree in history.

But,  having sat in on a couple of the prep classes for Battlefield Guides 
at  
the HACC, (they don't hold them anymore) I stumbled into, the LBG guys do  
yeomen's work in assuring that their guides are a quality product in terms  
of the minituae of the field.

Wish they had that kind of program at  Normandy.

Regards,

Jack





9
-----  Original Message ----- 
From: "Andy Mills"  <amills at jplcreative.com>
To: "GDG"  <gettysburg at arthes.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 8:12  AM
Subject: GDG- Battlefield Tour Guides


> Esteemed GDG  Member Contributes:
> I hope this is "on-topic" and offer my apologies  if it is not.
>
> At some point this summer (I don't have anything  planned at the moment 
> other than this is a goal of mine but depends  upon having free weekends 
> which are in short supply due to some  family issues), I would like to 
get 
> to Fredericksburg and tour some  of those battlefields.
>
> Is there anything like the Gettysburg  Licensed Battlefield Tour Guides 
one 
> could use for the Fredericksburg  area battlefields?  Or does anyone know 
> of people who do it in  their spare time or through a company in the area 
> in which one could  hire a guide?
>
> It is one of those things where I know the  history of what transpired in 
> Fredericksburg but someone familiar  with the ground and area could show 
> you those "out of the way" type  places and with the modern town almost 
on 
> the edge of the NPS land,  it is very hard to know "the ground" as the 
time 
> of the battle and  where various points are in relation to each other (I 
> hope this makes  sense).
>
> Thanks,
>  
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