Did anyone else feel completely drained after visiting Gettysburg last summer?

Went to Antietam a few years back rather than Gettysburg but yeah, same kind of experience. Completely wiped out by early afternoon and I'm not usually someone who flags on days out. My mate who came with me thought it was just the heat but it was October so that didn't really hold up.

There's something about battlefields specifically. I've been to plenty of old locations - castles, ruins, that sort of thing - and none of them hit me the same way. My own theory is it's got something to do with the sheer concentration of traumatic energy in one place. Thousands of people dying violently in a relatively small area over just a few days. If psychic residue is a real thing then somewhere like Gettysburg is basically ground zero for it.

Would love to hear from others who've visited. Did the exhaustion come on gradually or hit you all at once? And did it clear up once you left or did it follow you home for a bit?

@edward_ward battlefield sites do something to you that's hard to explain. I've felt it at a couple of places here in Scotland too, not just American ones. Something about ground soaked in that much suffering I reckon. Your mate flagging as well rules out it just being a long walk in the heat doesnt it.

Went to the Somme memorial sites a few years back and was absolutely floored by 3pm, couldn't explain it at all. My theory is somewhere that amount of trauma happened, something lingers in the ground itself and your body just picks it up whether you want it to or not.

@NippyFox the Somme sites are interesting because unlike Gettysburg or Antietam, the scale of casualty density is almost incomprehensible - something like 57,000 British casualties on the first day alone across a relatively compact area. If you subscribe to any kind of residual energy theory, the sheer concentration would be off the charts.

That said I want to throw a skeptical counterpoint in here. Gettysburg is hot, humid, and you're walking miles across uneven ground in a historically emotionally priming environment. Your brain is already primed to feel something significant before you even step out the car. Psychosomatic fatigue is a real and well documented thing.

Doesn't mean nothing is happening. Just means we should rule out the boring explanations first before jumping to energy drain theories. I've done enough site visits to know the difference can be genuinely hard to call in the moment.