Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1887 — The Gettysburg Panorama. [ARTICLE]

The Gettysburg Panorama.

The removal ot the great panoramic pictyre of ‘the Battle of * Missionary Ridge recalls the time when these gigantic, representations of the greatest events in American'history were first introduced in our midst. “Gettysburg” • has outlived “Missionary Ridge.” and bids fair to become a perennial institu tion in Chicago. Hardly a week pass es that doeS' n.ot bring hundreds of old combatants, Federal and Confederate, to look once more upon the crucial held of the hlighty struggle, and to live o’er again the hopeful, anxious, fateful day. I'be first sensation of the visitor to this extraordinary exhibition is one that does not lose any of its freshness upon a subsequent inspection. -Although aware, before entering, that he is looking at a building of 131 feet in diameter and 96 feet high, he finds himself, after ascending the little narrow stairs, in an open country, stretching many miles in every direction toward the horizon. It.is impossible to break the illusion involved in so splendid a triumph of perspective drawing. Then the accuracy of :he landscape in every detail is such as to call forth the spec, ial plaudits of the Pennsylvanians, one of whom exclaimed the other day, “My God! Lock at our Blue mountains.” The scenes of yalor, of destruction, of carnage and of death upon: which the spectator looks down seem never to lose, their dreadful interest. The real ground—with a gun here, a broken ammunition wiigon there, and a cavalry trumpet in the ditch—the real snake fency //nd the real stone walls arc so skillfully continued into the canvass that on s’ightly lifting his head one can bear the last agon hang cry of the rebel General Aimistead as'he falls in the moment of temporary victory. Cn coni'; the cotftondiiig hosts, despite the terrific gaps made in them by the the- : my’s artillery. «... Riderless, steeds, bewildered, fly they kn >w not where; dead and dying strew the field; innumerable instances ot individual heroism fill the on-looker with admiration. As a whole and in every .detail, the work is £.q unexceptionable that upon retiring from the bloody field old heroes feel that they have “fought -their batties o'er tignin.”—Chicago E.vening . iloili/n ;iT/ : A'ij.y Agti.a . .... .... p -