Now Professor, don't knock the Frogs so close to Bastille Day ... besides they did yeoman work in our Revolution at great expense to themselves. De Grasse was a fighting admiral, too. Unfortunately he had his cul handed to him later in the West Indies. My favorite revolutionary Divine Intervention was the mysterious ground fog that allowed the Americans to escape from Washington Heights!
In re Gettysburg ... you'll make it! Unfortunately, the town is a tourist trap and now there's an occult something or other going on with ghost tours, ghostbusters, apparitions reported,, etc. etc. So, maybe you're onto something!
While nowhere as pristine as Antietam, amazingly much of the battlefield remains as it was. I believe Lee's original plan was to fight a defensive battle ... Ewell wanted to base it at Cashtown ... he certainly wasn't 100% physically at the time. A.P. Hill spent an inordinate amount of time on sick leave and he was mighty touchy about the prerogatives of his command. Tactically brilliant, but perhaps not quite as much a collaborative commander as he might have been. BTW, I cannot tell you how valuable I find Jubal Early's memoirs. Not only a capable commander, he seems to be a dead reliable report writer who admits his own mistakes ... no self-aggrandizement and lots of detail.
If you are into the Revolution
Professor, it has always secretly worried me that had I been around, I might have been a Tory!
Have you ever read Destruction and Reconstruction by Richard Taylor? A great read!