Irish American actor Martin Sheen commented in an interview published in Irish America that he loves his Irish heritage in part because the Irish have never planted their flag on the soil of another nation. He loves the Irish because Ireland has always exported poets and artists and clergy, but not armies. He is proud that Ireland has never invaded anyone.

Gettysburg is a sleepy crossroads town.  Situated in hilly Cumberland Valley fields in Pennsylvania, it is a musket volley or two short of 215 miles southwest of Manhattan.  Now a national battlefield shrine, in July 1863 it was the turning point in our nation’s Civil War, known as the War Between the States to our Southern countrymen.