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  • Gettysburg Reenactment Celebrates 150th Anniversary of the Battle

    150 years ago the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvaniaoccurred, taking the largest number of lives of any battle in the U.S. Civil War. After the three-day battle was fought from July 1 – 3 in 1863, an estimated 46,000 U.S. and Confederate soldiers lay dead.

    Like many Civil War battles that took place across the eastern U.S., Gettysburg is being remembered this year by Civil War enthusiasts and scholars. To celebrate the battle’s 150th anniversary, a massive reenactment is scheduled to take place over the coming 4th of July holiday weekend.

    According to an CNN report, 200,000 to 300,000 people will descend upon Gettysburg National Military Park to watch and participate in the reenactment. The Battle of Gettysburg itself only had around 165,000 combatants.

    Events will be held at the national park throughout the week, beginning with a commemorative ceremony that will be broadcast live tonight on C-SPAN 3 and online at the History Channel website. On July 3, thousands of participants will follow National Park Service Rangers as they lead everyone in a reenactment of Pickett’s Charge – the large Confederate charge toward the center of Union lines on Cemetary Ridge. The charge was rebuffed by Union troops, leading to many Confederate losses and the eventual retreat of General Robert E. Lee. Pickett’s Charge is often cited as one of the turning points of the U.S. Civil War.

    (Image courtesy U.S. National Park Service)

    (via CNN)

  • John Wilkes Booth Bobblehead Pulled From Gift Shop

    Bobblehead dolls immortalizing the assassin of Abraham Lincoln were recently taken off the shelves at a Gettysburg National Military Park visitor’s center bookstore, according to reports.

    The effigies featured John Wilkes Booth holding a pistol, and were sold at the store for a week, before a reporter for Hanover’s Evening Sun dropped by and asked about them. According to Gettysburg Foundation spokeswoman Dru Anne Neil, the dolls were removed after the park superintendent, the foundation president and the bookstore manager agreed on the matter.

    Neil went on to say, “on rare occasions, there’s an item that might cause concern, and obviously the bobbleheads appeared to be doing that.” The boobleheads, which sold for about $20, included packaging depicting the inside of Washington D.C.’s Ford’s Theatre, where confederate sympathizer Booth assassinated Lincoln in 1865.

    BobbleHead LLC, the Kasas City based manufacturer of the dolls, is currently making more, as 150 of the 250 original dolls were sold. BobbelHead sales manager Matt Powers stated, “there’s a market there – We like to let the customer decide if it’s a good item or not.”

    Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was the site of a July 1863 Civil War battle, the bloodiest of the conflict with 51,000 casualties, and is considered to be the turning point of the war.

    In related news, a Chinese manufacturer had recently began producing an eerily lifelike Steve Jobs action figure, adding to the selection of possibly inappropriate dolls for collection.