GETTYSBURG, Pa. (WHP) – Controversy continues to swirl around the presence and removal of Confederate era statues around the country. With 15 to 20 southern statues, and hundreds of memorials and plaques, the Gettysburg battlefield takes people back to a piece of our history.

“This is hallowed ground. This is hallowed ground,” said Erik Crist, owner of Flex and Flannigan’s.

At quick glance, the Virginia memorial with Robert E. Lee sitting atop his horse looks similar to the statue that Virginia’s Governor has ordered taken down in Richmond. This monument is a centerpiece of the history here in Gettysburg, a landscape that doesn’t appear to be changing.

“If you don’t know history, you are doomed to repeat it,” said Crist.

A piece of history is for sale in Crist’s souvenir shop, Flex and Flannigan’s, just feet from the battlefield. From confederate flags to figurines, everything is available and that is not changing.

“The sales on confederate flags have been through the roof,” he said.

“Our job is to tell the story of what happened here, the Union and the Confederates,” said Jason Martz, of the Gettysburg National Military Park.

And that history is staying put. On these grounds sit between 15 to 20 monuments dedicated to different figures and units from the south. Hundreds of other markers adorn the fields telling the story of the battle and its aftermath.

“Whether it’s a pleasant story or an unpleasant story, it’s still part of the American fabric,” Martz said.

Race conversations and questions are nothing new for Martz and the team from the National Park Service.Portraying an accurate account of the events of July 1 through 3, 1863 is and always will be the goal.

“That’s what our job is, to tell that story, the good, the bad and the ugly because that’s all to some degree still happening,” he said.

“If you don’t know your history, you were doomed to do something really stupid,” said Crist.

All of the monuments on this field were Congressionally approved and if anything were to be removed, it would have to go through an elaborate process.

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