‘A horrendous battle’: Mark Levin remembers Gettysburg and his father’s timeless book



Mark Levin inherited his love for America and her great founders from his father, Jack E. Levin — a devoted family man, businessman, author, illustrator, and self-taught constitutional historian. Over the course of his life, Jack authored and illustrated several patriotic, historically themed books that became best-sellers on the New York Times list.

His most famous book — “Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Illustrated” (2010) — featured beautifully hand-painted watercolor-style illustrations of Civil War soldiers, battlefields, period flags, mourning families, and solemn portraits of Lincoln alongside the Great Emancipator's famous speech.

“He thought that Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was so profound,” says Levin of his father. “And it was.”

Reading Lincoln’s iconic address that consecrated the cemetery for the Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg, Levin honors both America’s 16th president and his beloved father.

“That was a horrendous battle in Gettysburg, absolutely horrendous — the number of casualties, the number of dead, how quickly it happened,” Levin reflects.

He retells the story of how the two armies literally bumped into each other by accident outside Gettysburg — General Robert E. Lee’s forces pushing north toward Philadelphia, hoping a decisive strike on Union soil would force the North to sue for peace and let the South go, only to suffer a crushing defeat in the massive, unintended three-day battle that turned the tide of the war.

Lincoln, says Levin, “was furious” that Union commander Major General George G. Meade “did not follow Lee's army and destroy it.” He wanted the war to end right then and there.

The Civil War, he reminds us, wasn’t just about the abolition of slavery; it was also about the nation’s survival.

Like his father, who was deeply concerned with “the lack of patriotism and support for the country,” Levin worries about the lack of and distortion of American history education in this country.

“That's why if people don't know history, they just keep talking about, ‘Oh, it was founded by white [supremacists] and nationalists,”’ he sighs. “No — we were founded by great men.”

To hear more of his commentary, watch the video above.

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'Visibly intoxicated' man enters still-running parked vehicle with three boys inside, leads cops on high-speed chase as kids call 911 to give location updates



A "visibly intoxicated" man over the weekend entered a parked vehicle with its engine still on — and with three boys inside — and then led police on a high-speed chase as the kids called 911 to give location updates, authorities said.

What are the details?

Police told WHP-TV the suspect — 44-year-old Jason Harris — allegedly stole the vehicle Sunday from a Walmart parking lot in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

He did so after the boys' father got out of the vehicle to go inside the Walmart, the Kansas City Star reported.

Police told WHP that Harris drove the stolen vehicle at high speeds, and the children inside pleaded with him to slow down.

State troopers told WHTM-TV the children also called 911 from the vehicle and communicated where they were headed. WHP said that information helped troopers pinpoint the vehicle's location.

One of the kidnapped boys told 911 he was in a vehicle with a driver “he believed was drunk,” state police said in an affidavit, according to the Star, which added that troopers who tried to catch up were traveling at speeds over 120 miles per hour.

At one point, the driver struck a curb, causing “significant damage," the paper said, adding that troopers soon caught up to the vehicle and boxed it in.

“I opened the door and gave him verbal commands to get out,” one of the troopers wrote in the affidavit, the Star reported. “As he did, the vehicle kept rolling forward until he put it into park.”

More from the paper:

The driver, who was “visibly intoxicated,” was handcuffed, authorities said. Troopers observed “he had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage about his breath ... as well as glassy blood shot eyes.”

Authorities said they asked him how drunk he was, and he replied “really drunk, I’ve been drinking a lot man.”

The driver admitted he stole the vehicle because he ran out of gas and needed to get to Harrisburg, about 40 miles northeast of Gettysburg, according to court records. He said he was heading there to buy heroin, according to the records.

The driver said he heard kids in the vehicle but continued driving anyway, authorities told the Star. The three children in the backseat were unharmed, WHP reported.

Harris was charged with three counts of kidnapping a minor, endangering the welfare of children, fleeing or attempting to elude officers, DUI/unsafe driving, and other traffic offenses, WHTM said, adding that he was sent to Adams County Prison after being unable to post $50,000 bail.

Three children kidnapped at Gettysburg Walmart, suspect chargedyoutu.be

Ghosts at Gettysburg? 'We saw these shapes moving in the darkness. They were the size of humans. One of them ran right through the cannon.'



As many folks do over the summer, Greg Yuelling and his family were visiting the famed Civil War battle site in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.

And he knew about the ghost stories.

"I've heard people say you can catch videos of ghosts around there, but we were so skeptical until that night," the 46-year-old told The U.S. Sun. "I always questioned the validity of those ghost videos you see on TV; I was always pretty disbelieving."

Then he added these words to the paper: "I believe everything now."

What happened?

"We just went there as tourists, to learn more about the history of the Civil War and see the old battleground, where the Gettysburg Address was given and all that stuff," Yuelling recounted to the paper.

And given all the ghost stories — over 50,000 soldiers lost their lives during the three-day battle in July 1863 — you don't think they were going to stay inside when the sun went down, do you?

"We were driving along one night, and we started hearing noises," Yuelling told the paper. "I heard things to the left, and my uncle heard things to the right, and there was a fog — but the fog was weird. It was only in one patch, not dispersed."

It got weirder.

"Then we saw these shapes moving in the darkness. They were the size of humans. One of them ran right through the cannon," he recalled to the paper.

Yes, video was rolling — and faint shapes can be seen apparently moving on the grass near the cannons before slithering away.

Yuelling called the whole ordeal "scary" and "crazy" — so much so that his spooked-out uncle quickly rolled up the window, the paper said.

"We went back, and watched the videos over and over again, and then we blew them up on the big screen to get a closer look," he told the paper.

Bad idea.

"That made us even more freaked out," Yuelling noted to the Sun.

Things didn't improve after hours, either, as he told the paper he couldn't shake "this strange, ominous feeling, like something was telling me to go back there."

(You know the plot of "Pet Sematary," don't you?)

Sleep wouldn't come for Yuelling that night, he told the Sun — but he wouldn't go back to the spot of the apparent apparitions, either: "I was creeped out, so I didn't go."

Gettysburg 'ghosts' run across road in this bone-chilling video | New York Postyoutu.be