The following is from CBS News files - July 8, 2018
If July the 4th represents the birth of our country, another event in the same month speaks to something else: a time when our nation was put to the test during the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Mark Strassmann has the story of some Civil War era-trees standing witness:
Gettysburg … America's Armageddon. In July 1863, two great armies, the Blue and the Gray, collided on these fields for three days. It remains the bloodiest battle in U.S. history.
And improbably, 155 years later, there are still living witnesses to that moment in time, otherwise gone to dust and glory: The trees.
Across 6,000 acres of Gettysburg National Military Park, rangers have documented at least a dozen "witness trees" that were alive during the battle - living links that help tell the story of the battle.
"For many years after the Battle of Gettysburg, we had the veterans that we could speak with, or we would have the descendants of the veterans that we could speak with," said Supervisory Park Ranger Angie Atkinson. "And so now the closest living connection are these trees."
The Sickles Tree
A Massachusetts bugler sketched a swamp oak growing next to Union General Daniel Sickles' headquarters. Today, this massive landmark is known as the Sickles Tree.
Correspondent Mark Strassmann and Supervisory Park Ranger Angie Atkinson visit the Sickles Tree at Gettysburg National Military Park, which was alive at the time the Battle of Gettysburg was fought.CBS NEWS
"It witnessed a general contemplating a decision, whether or not to move his men forward," said Ranger Atkinson. "And even today, it stands here as a witness to people who are still visiting this battlefield 155 years later."
These Witness Trees remind park visitors, of every age, that the Civil War is hardly ancient history.
Inside the park's visitors' center, a tree limb on display is… Click here for the full story