The Battle of Gettysburg: Save the electric map before it's too late!

Add this one to the "Save the ____" list.

There's a group out there that has created a Web site aimed at saving the 40-year-old electric battle map at Gettysburg National Military Park, which is scheduled to be dismantled and put into storage when the old museum there is demolished next year.

The map has been a perennial park favorite, lighting up to show visitors key troop movements at important junctures at the famous Civil War battle. Thousands of Civil War buffs have been able to better visualize Pickett's Charge over the years because of it.

A new museum and visitor's center opened at Gettysburg last month, complete with the latest technology that, park officials say, will bring the battle home to visitors like never before. But there's a small army out there who says new technology be damned: the 30 x 30 electronic map (complete with more than 600 lights), invented by some guy in Connecticut, is one of a dying breed of old school Civil War displays, like the Cyclorama in Atlanta depicting Sherman's men torching the city.

The Save the Electric Map homepage is aimed at those out there enraged that a crowd favorite has been taken out of commission at Gettsyburg (though park authorities are not ruling out bringing the map back in some capacity). There are phone numbers and ways to take action. And the guy on the homepage looks like Robert E. Lee. Kind of.

Filed under: Activism, North America, United States