GETTYSBURG : A HAUNTING VISIT TO CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELD WHERE A NATION DIVIDED COLLIDED.

Byline: Susanne Hopkins Daily News Travel Editor

The pall of gunfire and the smell of death hung heavy over Gettysburg at the end of the day on July 3, 1863.

After three days of ferocious fighting, 51,000 men lay dead or wounded on the plowed wheatfields and in the cherry and peach orchards of this once-peaceful southern Pennsylvania town. Historians say folks couldn't tell whether the fallen were Union or Confederate because of the blood and the dirt.

And they say that five minutes made the difference - five minutes turned the tide of the Civil War in the North's favor and forever changed America's course.

It's a haunting - some would say haunted - place, this Gettysburg National Military Park and National Cemetery. As I bump along the roads meandering through the nearly 6,000 acres of the battlefield on a double-decker tour bus, I can't erase images of young men - many just boys, really - charging over knolls, dodging minie balls and bullets and fighting fiercely with broken rifles, sticks, even rocks.

Gettysburg is alive with ghosts.

And tourists. More than 1.7 million from all over the world travel annually to this small town of 7,000, which is ringed by the national park and national cemetery. For while Gettysburg is a Northern city and the site of a major Northern victory, it is America's battlefield. There is, it seems, tragedy enough here for both sides, for all people.

You could spend days here - three would be good - exploring the battlefield, the cemetery, the town, and the myriad museums and oddball attractions that have sprung up around the battlefield. Indeed, there are so many things to see and do one is hard-pressed to choose. But there are some things that shouldn't be missed, says Katie Lawhon, public affairs specialist for Gettysburg National Park.

``I would definitely see the historic core of Gettysburg, which is Lincoln Square, if only to get the sense that there are so many roads that go through this small Pennsylvania town,'' she says. ``And it is those very roads that brought the war to the doorstep of Gettysburg.

``The (National Park) Visitor Center is the best place to start,'' she continues, noting its museum of Civil War artifacts and particularly the Electric Map that, with colored lights, details troop movements during the battle. ``You get a real sense of what went on on the battlefield. You can see that the South attacked from the north and the North attacked from the south.''

And then there are the hiking trails through portions of the battlefield. ``You can actually walk Pickett's Charge,'' Lawhon says of the ill-fated Confederate assault over open fields on the Union's center line. Only a third of the Southern troops retreated to safety. ``You follow the footsteps of 12,000 Confederate soldiers, actually climb over the wall some of them climbed to get to Cemetery Ridge (the edge of the Union line). And another really special place is Little Round Top (the Union's key position July 2-3).''

On a warm spring day, I make my pilgrimage to Gettysburg. The village is swarming with people; there's an antique show and the streets are littered with oak bureaus, butter churns and pressed-back chairs.

The national park is equally busy; there are, in fact, so many people here that I cannot find a parking space at the Visitor Center - a common problem, it turns out. Daily from April to October, the number of visitors far exceeds the 293 parking places, Lawhon says. It's a major handicap. The auto tape tour starts here; the National Cemetery, which does not allow cars, is across the way; the museum is here and so is the Cyclorama, a 360-degree painting of Pickett's Charge augmented with light, sound and films telling the tale of the battle. Then, too, the shuttle bus to the Eisenhower National Historic Monument leaves from here.

I have learned the first rule of Gettysburg: Get here well before 10 a.m.

So I scrap my idea of taking an auto tape tour and opt instead for a two-hour bus tour. While you trade independence for convenience on any bus tour, this one turns out to be a good deal.

Seated on the open top of the double-decker bus, map in hand and earphones clamped to my ears, I listen as the tale of Gettysburg spins out and we rumble slowly down 23 miles of battlefield roads. We slow first at one of the 1,300 monuments (nearly every state has installed one on the battlefield), that of a general on a horse with its feet planted on the ground. ``If two of a horse's hooves are off the ground, the general was killed,'' the narrator informs. ``If one of its hooves is up, he was wounded. If all of the hooves are on the ground, he escaped unharmed.''

I am to see many with some hooves off the ground.

Then, we're on Chambersburg Road, where, on July 1, 1863, the Confederate Division advanced east in search of shoes for its ill-shod infantry - while the Union Cavalry Division moved west on the same road.

``(General Robert E.) Lee needs a decisive victory on northern soil,'' the narrator says. So when scouts from both sides spot each other at about 8 a.m., the battle begins.

The bus rumbles past the Eternal Peace Monument that was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. We pass Gettysburg College, which was turned into a hospital during the battle, then wind through the streets of the town, past the railroad station where President Abraham Lincoln arrived Nov. 18, 1863, and Judge David Willis' house, where Lincoln was housed and where he penned the Gettysburg Address.

Then, we're back at the battlefield where the Union position formed a fishhook from Culp's Hill around Cemetery Hill and down Cemetery Ridge. We venture by Seminary Hill, which the Confederates held on the second and third days of the battle and stop at Little Round Top. Here, on a hill overlooking great outcroppings of rock now called Devil's Den, 6,000 Union forces fended off 15,000 Confederate soldiersS on July 2. If the Confederate charge on Little Round Top had started just five minutes earlier, before Union reinforcements could arrive, Gettysburg would have been another story, the narrator says.

But the casualties were severe, earning the area the moniker Valley of Death; its small creek was renamed Bloody Run. The battles were so bloody and resulted in so many casualties, our narrator says, that the town's church pews were taken apart to serve as operating tables; holes were drilled in the floor of the church to drain the blood.

Past 400 cannon still on the battlefield - most in working order - we go. Hikers and bicyclers traverse the winding roads, adding to the peacefulness of the scenery. I admire a picturesque red barn nestled in a little valley. As if reading my mind, the narrator points it out. Spangler's Barn, he calls it, the spot where, on July 3, Pickett's Charge began - and the Southern hold on victory ended.

There's a silence on the bus, a sense of heaviness, as we slowly proceed past the National Cemetery where most of the Union dead are buried (bodies of Confederate forces were exhumed and returned to the South). Four months after the battle, an ailing Lincoln (he was later found to have a mild case of smallpox) arrived to dedicate the cemetery. A familiar voice, that of late actor Raymond Massey, comes over the earphones: ``Fourscore and seven years ago ...''

I watch as some on the bus speak the immortal lines of the Gettysburg Address along with Massey. Others cry.

One hundred and thirty-three years after those terrible days, Gettysburg remains a symbol of sadness, of a time when our country was rent apart by war against itself.

It is worthy of a visit.

Outtakes

If you've got a little extra time in Gettysburg, a visit to the Eisenhower National Historic Site adjacent to the battlefield offers an intriguing peek into the life of our former president. Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, purchased 189 acres of farmland in 1950. The EisenhoweSrs built a modified Georgian farmhouse, outfitted the grounds with a putting green and Black Angus cattle and decorated the home's interior in comfortable style with knickknacks and memorabilia (a rug from the Shah of Iran, gifts from around the world). Here, they lived during their retirement, from 1961 until Mamie died in 1978 (Ike died in 1969); the house is as it was, down to the pink monogrammed towels in the linen closet.

``When you pick up the lid of the candy jar, Mamie's Philip Morris cigarettes are still hidden in the hard candy,'' says guide Jeff Evans.

There are myriad other attractions in the town of Gettysburg, from inviting antique shops and historic homes to the Confederate States Armory & Museum with its collection of Civil War weapons; the Hall of Presidents and First Ladies, a wax exhibit of 42 presidents and, in an adjoining gallery, the gowns of numerous first ladies, as well as paintings by Eisenhower; the America Military Museum, a collection of more than 5,000 military miniatures; the Soldier's National Museum, once a general's headquarters and later the Soldier's National Orphanage Homestead for orphans of the Civil War, which now houses dioramas of the war's 10 major battles; the Lincoln Room Museum, the room where Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address; and General Lee's Headquarters Museum, a home built in the 1700s that became Robert E. Lee's base of operations during the Battle of Gettysburg. It now features Civil War memorabilia and period furnishings.

Gettysburg, call the Gettysburg Travel Council, [phone].

On Location

Pennsylvania visitors can see the Gettysburg National Military Park and National Cemetery in a variety of ways. I took the double-decker bus tour offered by the Gettysburg Tour Center, 778 Baltimore St., Gettysburg; [phone]; cost is $10.95 adults, $7.50 children age 6-11. Audiotapes are also available for rent at the center ($8.75 plus tax and deposit) to listen to as you drive yourself around the bSattlefield. Or, you can hire a personal battlefield guide ($25 for two hours for an individual or family) through the national park's visitors center.

Whichever you choose, be prepared to spend several hours here. Parking at the Visitor Center is quite limited; it's best to arrive early in the morning or time your visit for November through March to avoid the worst crowds. Katie Lawhon, public affairs specialist for the national park, acknowledged the severity of the problem. ``We estimate that if our facilities stayed at the Visitor Center, our parking needs are for 1,100 to 1,300 cars,'' she says. There currently is parking for 293 cars, as well as six handicapped spaces and 32 oversized spaces for RVs.

The park is proposing to raze both the Visitor Center and the Cyclorama buildings and rebuild them elsewhere, where parking would be more plentiful, Lawhon says.

Gettysburg National Military Park is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; the Visitor Center is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission is free to both, though there are fees for tours, the Electronic Map ($2 for those 16 and older, $1.50 for adults over 62) and the Cyclorama sound-and-light-program ($2 for those 16 and over, $1.50 for adults over 61). Information: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, 2 Boxes

Photo: (1--Color) The Soldier's National Monument in Gettysburg National Cemetery pays tribute to all who served at the Battle of Gettysburg.

(2--Color) The peaceful farmlands of Gettysburg belie the horror that took place here over three days in July 1863.

(3--Color) The 91st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Monument stands above the Gettysburg valley that once was drenched in blood.

(4--Color) Markers in Gettysburg National Cemetery denote only Northern casualties; bodies of Confederates were returned to the South.

Susanne Hopkins/Daily News

Box: (1) Outtakes (See Text)

(2) On Location (See Text)