[John H K]

6. The battlefields of the Civil War--all of Northern Virginia is one big battlefield but there are strip malls on most of it except Manassas. If you can spare a day for it, every American should visit Gettysburg, which is 2 (scenic) hours away.

Gettysburg is sorta ruined for me by all the statues every few feet. Antietam (even closer than Gettysburg) looks 10 times better with 1/10th the crowds.

[Capriole]

I guess it's a matter of personal taste. A student of the Civil War might make a fine day of Sharpsburg (Antietam) and Harper's Ferry. I've certainly spent a lot of enjoyable, moving time at Sharpsburg, both in the town and in the Dunker Church or at Burnside Bridge.

But Gettysburg is the anvil whereon this nation was forged. Crowds or not, tour buses or not, people who want to understand how we got to be America should go there to walk the line of Pickett's Charge, climb the rocks of Devil's Den, and look down from the heights of Little Round Top.