Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War

Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War http://www.18thmass.com/blog/ Blogging the Civil War en-us Nucleus CMS v3.32 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.18thmass.com/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War http://www.18thmass.com/blog/ Transgressing Against The Dead http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1044 Arlington National Cemetery has been in the news lately for a number of reported transgressions, including misidentifying bodies and grave sites, dumping ashes of the cremated in a dirt pile, and using discarded gravestones to prevent soil erosion along a stream’s banks. Now a northern Virginia funeral home with a National Cemetery contract has been fined $50,000 for, among other violations, inappropriately storing the bodies of those waiting burial in a garage.

That this should be happening at any cemetery, least of all Arlington, violates one of the bedrock rules few in life will tolerate. To avoid bringing somebody’s blood to a boil: don’t play around with somebody’s heart; don’t insult somebody’s mother; don’t screw around with somebody’s money; don’t kick somebody’s dog; and, certainly least of all, don’t screw around with the dead, particularly if they have living relatives.

Albert L. Jordan's name was among those listed as wounded in the fighting at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, suffering what was termed a “slight" wound to the hip. His headstone epitaph, “Free from suffering at last,” bore testimony to the fact that the minie ball that tore through his wallet, and the picture of his wife contained inside, before piercing flesh and shattering bone subjected him to severe and crippling pain for the rest of his days. That the wound was not as slight as first reported is evident by the ten months he spent in the hospital recuperating and that when he walked out of Lovell General Hospital in Portsmouth, Rhode Island with a medical discharge on May 19, 1864 he did so with the aid of crutches. The wallet, by the way, still survives and was kept on display for years behind a bar owned and operated by a distant cousin.

The wound Jordan suffered never fully healed. During surgery performed in 1882 large abscesses discharged bone fragments. A microscopic examination of pus taken from his hip also revealed evidence of threads from his uniform blouse.

Jordan is buried in Section 7, a small knoll that rises in the center of the Union Street Cemetery in Franklin, Massachusetts, along with his wife Clara, daughter Clara Eva, and his in-laws, George W. and Joanna Thompson. According to family tradition, George Thompson, then a Corporal in Company I of the 18th Massachusetts was responsible for recruiting Albert and later his brother Samuel. Whether George did or didn’t entice them to enlist by offering a personal incentive, the brothers wound up marrying George's teenage daughters. Samuel Harris Jordan, my second great-grandfather, is interred in another section of the cemetery with his wife, some of his nine children, and one granddaughter, known to me as “Grammy.” Grammy, nee Florence, is buried next her husband Russell.

I hadn’t been to the Union Street Cemetery in about four years. Walking up the hill in Section 7 toward the Jordan-Thompson graves I knew almost immediately that something was wrong. As I got closer, the reality of what had happened hit me.

I don’t know how much energy it takes to push over a stone weighing a couple of hundred pounds, but I can’t imagine one person doing it alone. After the shock wore off anger set in and my imagination was flooded with an image of me, baseball bat in hand, standing over two fetal positioned jerks holding onto their balls.

I’ve promised George, Joanna, Albert, Clara, Clara Eva, and myself that I will make this right, that I will get the gravestone turned upright on its base again.. Thus far I’ve made one unreturned phone call and sent an email to someone who’s currently on vacation, in an effort to find out what steps need to be taken. I was told by a cemetery worker there's a committee that oversees the Union Street Cemetery and makes decisions on such matters, but I’m already prepared for the possibility of making my own arrangements. We'll see how this all turns out.

]]> Chasing the Dead http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1044 Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:00:00 -0400 How much do we really protect our past http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1043
The museum started in an unfinished mansion that the City of Memphis would come into control of when the founder of Piggly Wiggly foreclosed on it during the Great Depression. The exhibits themselves came from the citizens of Memphis. If you lived in Memphis and had something cool that you wanted to share with your fellow citizens, you would bring it to the staff and they would put it out for show. Through the years the museum would flourish and expand. While the main part of the museum is not in a modern building that is to the right and below the mansion (the world’s largest underground IMAX Theater is underneath the mansion’s front yard) – you can still find things that date back to the old days. One of my favorites is the Shrunken Heads display which are two real heads that were brought back from Africa, and include a recipe card for making it yourself. The other is a hand carved, moving circus. It is so delicate; it only is turned on twice a day. If you look close, you can even see reflections in the past, as the crowd is segregated.

Those in Memphis took these treasures and cared for them lovingly so that citizens almost a century later could still view and be amazed. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about a similar place in my hometown of Beaufort. Located in the town’s old ammunition depot, The Arsenal, it was much like The Pink Palace where folks would donate stuff and then citizens could come view it. I can remember walking through the presentation some 25 years ago as a young teenager, looking at the remnants of the past, sometimes thinking how strange people used to live back in the old days.

Unfortunately, through the years, the items were not cared for and most are now lost due to neglect. As I read the article in The Beaufort Gazette, I was amazed at how everyone was blaming others for the mismanagement of the collection. Seriously, they treated these treasures worse than most do their recyclables.

How sad is it that no one could have used the initiative to put them somewhere that was climate controlled? Worse, why could they have not contacted the Paris Island museum that is only a short 10 minute drive from The Arsenal?

I doubt there will ever be any consequences for the groups that should have been caring for the collection. At best, this will be a wakeup call for those who failed Beaufort so horribly.

Which makes me wonder, what is going to happen to Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia, SC? In a state that delights in making a fool of itself, it literally shoots itself in the foot right before the Sesquicentennial of the war that the state started by cutting the Relic Room's budget in half.

In 20 years, will we be looking at the Relic Room with the pride that Memphis looks at the Pink Palace? Or will we instead watch politicians try to deflect the blame as they head off to a yacht race or golf outing?

]]> Random Thoughts http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1043 Sun, 20 Jun 2010 11:40:23 -0400 The Last Full Measure http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1040

(Click here for a larger image)

(Click here for a larger image)]]> General http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1040 Mon, 31 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400 2010 Gettysburg Seminar - Philippoteau's Belly http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1035 After a long hiatus it's time to get back to the 2010 Gettysburg Seminar and what better place to pick up then to take a behind the scenes peek at the Cyclorama.

If someone knows more about the Gettysburg Cyclorama than Sue Boardman let 'em step forward. That might be a cue for Kathryn Porch to take one baby step forward, after asking, "Mother may I," because, after all, she and Boardman teamed up to write a book on the subject, "The Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama: A History and Guide." Porch wasn't in the Ford Education Center, but Sue was and she seized the opportunity to impart her knowledge of the 126-year-old painting that's had as rough a go in life as the battlefield itself.

So here are some very brief facts that you can use to impress your friends with when you view the Cyclorama.

There are 14 panels, each measuring 26 feet in width and weighing 950 pounds. Total length 377 feet. Each section was painted by Paul Phillippoteau's team of artists while their canvas hung vertically. Philippoteu drew grid lines on the canvas to help the artists achieve symmetry and perspective. The present Gettysburg Cyclorama was one of four completed by Philippoteau and originally on display in Boston, while the others were shown in Chicago, Washington, and Brooklyn.

The Boston painting wound up in a wooden crate after that show closed around 1892 and was left exposed to the weather in a vacant lot, survived two fires, and was eventually sold to a Newark, New Jersey department store owner, who cut it up into small segments and draped the pieces from the balcony of his flagship store. Those pieces were eventually reunited and brought to Gettysburg in time for the 50th anniversary of the battle, where it was housed in a ramshackle building until 1942 when purchased by the National Park Service.

After undergoing an 11 million dollar restoration the Cyclorama is in many respects like the refurbished Sistine Chapel ceiling. The painting which had grown dark and lost much of its detail over time, turned out to be luminous when layers of ordinary house paint, applied during an earlier restoration effort, were carefully stripped away by conservators. The painting is magnificent to say the least and is now hanging properly, as it did in Boston, for the first time in over 118 years. Boardman said, too, that viewers should take note of the foreground which is comprised of Civil War artifacts donated by private collectors, something that was missing from the old Cyclorama, but which was part of Philippoteau's vision of creating as realistic a depiction of the battlefield as possible.

We were escorted upstairs and allowed the special treat of viewing the Cyclorama for close to twenty minutes with the houselights fully turned on, the second time I've had that lengthy experience. But we weren't finished yet, because we were then given an opportunity to see something very few visitors will ever chance upon, a chance to go into the belly of the beast, so to speak. To that end we were led downstairs, through a door that's normally open to staff only, through a narrow hallway, until we were directly underneath the viewing platform and face to face with the Cyclorama itself, so close that each of us could have reached out and touched it.

The Cyclorama From the Theater

[Artistic license - The death of Abraham Lincoln]

[Artistic license - The death of Gen. Lewis Armistead]

Going Behind the Scenes

]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1035 Wed, 26 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400 From the Heart http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1034 From Sanitary Commission fairs held in major cities throughout the North, to the Christian Commission providing hot coffee, religious tracts, and writing paper, to circles of women and children picking lint, rolling bandages, knitting socks and mittens, and through care packages and letters, private citizens did their best to ensure the wellbeing and morale of soldiers at the front. Gettysburg, in particular, tugged at the heartstrings of those at home and they responded with compassion and generosity both in large and small ways to meet the needs of the more than 20,000 who had been wounded and were lying in hospital beds.

Today, more striking passages from Gregory Coco’s “A Strange and Blighted Land; Getysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle:”

Some of the marks which are fastened on the blankets, shirts, &c., sent to the Sanitary Commission for the soldiers show the thought and feeling at home. Thus on a homespun blanket, worn, but washed as clean snow, was pinned a bit of paper, which said:

“This blanket was carried by Milly Aldrich (who is ninety-three years old) down hill and up hill one and half miles, to be given to some soldier.”

On a bed quilt was pinned a card saying: “My son is in the army. Whoever is made warm by this quilt, which I have worked on for six days and most of six night, let him remember his own mother’s love.”

On another blanket was this: “This blanket was used by a soldier in the war of 1812 – may it keep some soldier warm in this war against traitors.”

On a pillow was written: “This pillow belonged to my little boy, who died resting on it; it is a precious treasure to me, but I give it for the soldiers.”

On a pair of woolen socks was written: “These stockings were knit[ted] by a little girl five years old and she is going to knit some more, for mother says it will help some poor soldier.”

On a box of beautiful lint was this mark: “Made in a sick room, where the sunlight has not entered for nine years, but where God has entered, and where two sons have bid their mother good-bye as they have gone out to war.”

On a bundle containing bandages was written: “This is a poor gift, but it is all I had; I have given my husband and my boy, and only wish I have more to give, but I haven’t.”

On some eye shades were marked: “Made by one who is blind. Oh, how I long to see the dear Old Flags that you are all fighting under.”

]]> Books and Publications http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1034 Sat, 22 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400 Suck It Up And Embrace The Pain http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1033 Whether it was personal bias or truly an objective conclusion, some observers of the aftermath of Gettysburg concluded there was a stark contrast between Union and Confederate soldiers.

Much has been made over the perception that Southern soldiers possessed more flair and élan than their Northern counterparts. However, as the reading of Gregory Coco’s “A Strange and Blighted Land” progressed, I came across these comments made by those who observed or treated both Union and Confederate wounded after the battle of Gettysburg. Certainly this is a much more complicated issue than simple observation allows, because as the Merck Manual states: “People differ remarkably in their ability to tolerate pain. One person cannot tolerate the pain of a small cut or bruise, but another person can tolerate pain caused by a major accident or knife wound with little complaint. The ability to withstand pain varies according to mood, personality, and circumstance.”

George A. Stevens, a Surgeon from the 77th New York Infantry:

“A Union Soldier, if so severely wounded that he could by no possibility assume a cheerful countenance, would shut his teeth together and say nothing. While a rebel, if he could boast only a flesh wound, would whine and cry like a sick child.”

Frederick Law Olmstead of the U.S. Sanitary Commission on July 19, 1863:

“[wounded Rebels] expressed surprise at the kindness which they were treated when they came as invaders, and were as usual, peevish, childish, and exacting among themselves about their wounds and pains….”

An unidentified reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle on July 23, 1863:

“A noticeable contrast was observed in the sentiment and demeanor of the Union and rebel soldiers. That of the former was one of honest pride in the discharge of his duty to his country, and of the beneficial results expected thereby; the latter was generally that of disgust for that service in which he had embarked, and the hopelessness of ultimate success. They were tired of the war. The officers, however, preserved the defiant attitude which has characterized them throughout the whole war.”

Sophronia Bucklin, a nurse tending the wounded of both sides:

"…It was universally shown here, as elsewhere, that these [Rebels] bore their sufferings with far less fortitude than our brave soldiers who had been taught, in sober quiet homes in the North, that while consciousness remained, their manliness should suppress every groan.’

Dr. Francis M. Wafer, Surgeon in the 108th New York Infantry:

"[t]he enemy wounded were the loudest by far in their outcries for help. I have found this to be invariably the case on subsequent occasions. This I am not prepared to explain unless it be that they had no confidence in our humanity & dreaded willful neglect – but I can confidently and earnestly assert that I have never seen any distinction in their treatment.”

John Foster, member of the U.S. Christian Commission:

“[g]enrally the spirit of our men was much better than that of the rebels; they submitted more willingly and bravely to necessary operations, and often, in fact, made light of sufferings from which the Southrons seemed to shrink in dismay.”

]]> Books and Publications http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1033 Fri, 21 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400 Right Before Burgers, Fries, And A Coke At The Lincoln Diner http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1031
What's worse than being late for the start of a movie? Normally I'd say being a half hour late for the start of a tour of Seminary Ridge and the Lutheran Seminary. But there was a very good reason for being late.

How many people do you know that would drive 125 miles one way just to buy someone lunch? Honestly I don't know anyone other than my friend Len, who happened to be in Berwick, PA on a work related trip and knew I'd be at the Gettysburg Seminar. When I saw him standing near the doorway as the Saturday's session broke for lunch I was as surprised as I would have been had George Meade himself made a personal appearance. Len said the 125 mile drive was payback for my buying him breakfast in D.C. in January.

I've mentioned Len before in one or two previous posts. Our acquaintance stems from the fact that he willingly offered us the transcriptions to four years worth of letters written by his second great-uncle Richard, which he'd discovered in a shoe box in an attic after his father's passing. I've footnoted most of the letters for Len and his cousin, by identifying soldiers mentioned in the letters, locations, and events. Those footnotes have given both better insight into the individual experience of one soldier. Len was also given an explanation as to why there weren't letters in the collection dating from February to April 1864. Richard had re-enlisted for three years service at Beverly Ford, VA on February 7th and was home in Massachusetts on furlough for 35 days, beginning February 25th. A little over two weeks after arriving in his hometown of Middleboro he'd marry a girl named Helen Sanborn. That marriage, which produced two daughters, would be cut short, not by war, but through direct consequences of his military service, when Richard died of tuberculosis on March 14, 1868. He'd be one of four veterans from the 18th Mass., all under 30 years of age, all after prolonged illnesses, to pass that same year.

We drove out to the 18th Massachusetts monument, where I took this picture of Len wearing my "18th Massachusetts Infantry" hat. The hat is, by the way, the only one of its kind in the entire world, but I thought it was appropriate Len wear it when the shutter clicked. I wasn't 100 per cent certain at the time, but, in checking our database later, confirmed that what I had told Len about his second great-uncle Richard Holmes had been correct, that Richard had been at the Wheatfield on July 2nd and Little Round Top on July 3rd. Three weeks later Richard would be on his way back to Massachusetts again to train conscripts for inclusion in the 18th. William Alderman would later describe those draftees, who arrived in camp on November 4, 1863, just in time for the Mine Run Campaign, as, for the most part, woefully lacking and one of the sorriest bunches of excuses for soldiers he'd ever laid his eyes on.

]]> The 18th Massachusetts http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1031 Mon, 17 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400 Abe Lincoln's true awesomeness - Part II http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1029 Walkingsquares.com….

Click link above to see bigger version.
]]> General http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1029 Sun, 16 May 2010 09:26:55 -0400 Dogging Consecrated Ground http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1027 Preservation and development. Civil War Preservation Trust President Jim Lightizer opened a news conference to a National Press Club audience in Washington yesterday by saying the two don’t necessarily cancel each other out. They can co-exist in today’s society if given careful thought and planning; developers, power companies, and local governments just need to be mindful of our common past and heritage and ensure the legacy of the past is carried forward far into the future.

This was a call to arms so to speak. After two short Metro train rides involving four stops, a walk of two city blocks, and a 13 floor elevator ride, I found myself pursuing the press packet handed out by the Civil War Preservation Trust in a journalistic shrine known as the National Press Club waiting for Jim Lightizer to address the media and plead the case for endangered battlefields. This was the 2010 version, where the Top Ten most threatened pieces of consecrated ground were to be announced.

Camp Allegheny in West Virginia; Cedar Creek in Virginia; Ft. Stevens in DC; Gettysburg; Picacho Peak in Arizona; Pickett's Mill in Georgia; Richmond, Kentucky; South Mountain; Thoroughfare Gap in Virginia; and the Wilderness. I check the list of fifteen additional "At Risk" sites: Belmont, Missouri and Columbus, Kentucky; Chickamauga; Harper's Ferry; Honey Springs, Oklahoma; Knoxville; Manassas; Mobile; Monocacy; Monterey Pass; New Market Heights; Petersburg; Resaca, Georgia; Winchester, Virginia; Williamsburg; and Wilson's Creek. Personal disappointment sets in. Shepherdstown is missing. It's been relegated to the low minors after rising to Triple A last year.

Lightizer made it clear to his audience right off the bat that the Top Ten most endangered and fifteen At Risk battlefields list could have easily have been expanded to include two to three hundred sites. C.W.P.T. members and the general public are solicited for opinions, which are then sifted by staff members who, in turn, make recommendations to the Board of Directors. The Directors, who could engage in endless debates about which sites belong among the Top Ten , make the final selections. Geography is an important consideration. The organization wants to avoid bunching sites and chooses diverse locations throughout States that witnessed the conflict. Four separate battlefields in the Fredericksburg area, for example, could have taken a prominent place at the top of the list.

The C.W.P.T. "is in the business of saving America's heritage. We and most historians believe the Civil War was the defining moment in American history." The war claimed more lives than all other conflicts combined that American soldiers engaged in. To be certain, "the Civil War was a time of remarkable sadness and carnage" and "made America what it is today, the freest country in the world." It was an event that shaped and charted our future, an event that wasn't decided by the ballot, but "decided on the battlefield at a terrible cost."

In answer to critics, Lightizer defended the C.W.P.T. "We are not an anti-growth organization. You can save your history and have economic development."

Jeff Shaara was then introduced as a member of the C.W.P.T. Board of Trustees and author of nine consecutive best sellers, which have sold over five million copies. Shaara, who began with a modest disclaimer "I'm a novelist," said that he learned one major lesson sitting at his father Michael's knee and he put it into practice when researching "Gods and Generals." "You have to walk the ground of your characters." As such he went looking for the spot where Stonewall Jackson was shot.

Relating that on May 2, 1863, during horrific fighting at Chancellorsville, Jackson swept around the Union flank and began rolling it up west to east. "The war might have ended then, but for the end of daylight." Jackson went out that night to reconnoiter, probing for further weaknesses in the Union defenses to continue the attack, riding on a country lane at the head of those accompanying him. He could hear the enemy digging in, hear the shovels moving earth, and cautioned by his staff to turn back. Riding back down that country lane the sound of their horses caught the attention of troops from a North Carolina regiment, who had been exposed to "a tough day." Nervous, edgy, someone, it's unknown who, fired a single shot. This was followed by momentary uncertainty before a Captain yelled out, "Give it to them boys." Jackson was struck three times and fell from the saddle, wounded but not mortally so. He'd be claimed by pneumonia eight days later.

A Park Ranger showed Shaara where Jackson fell. A subtle depression in the earth is all that remains to mark the lane he rode. Jeff has nothing against WalMart, he even shops there. However, if development of their Wilderness store is allowed to proceed he said that one will be able to look down that country lane "smack at the building." The ability to "walk in the footsteps of history will be irreparably changed."

Jeff recalled his first visit to Gettysburg as an eight-year-old, smiling as he told those listening about home movies which show him climbing on cannon. He remembers that his father, from that point on, was "obsessed with Gettysburg." When he hit that very last typewriter key and thereby put the finishing touch to "The Killer Angels" he "had no idea what he had when he wrote it." Jeff beamed when he announced that book is now in its 109th printing.

But what he remembers more than that first visit to Gettysburg is one made when he was twelve. His father was "a great story teller" and during that visit they retraced on foot Pickett's Charge, walking the mile and a half over fields toward Cemetery Ridge. His father was repeating the story of Lewis Armistead marching in front of his men, hat on the tip of his upraised sword, moving ever closer to where Winfield Scott Hancock commanded opposing troops. They stepped over the same wall as Armistead and coming to a small monument dedicated to mark the spot where Armistead fell, Michael recalled that his father broke down crying. At that moment Michael Shaara's mind told him that he was Lewis Armistead and that he was sharing in his fate.

The land where battles and firefights once raged, where men carrying the stars and stripes or stars and bars once marched "is valuable because it's where we come from. It defines us as a people."

Mark Snell is a faculty member at Shepherdstown College and Director of the George Tyler Moor Civil War Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. He considers himself "lucky to live in Gettysburg." He can see Big Round Top from his front porch and drives by South Mountain and Antietam on his way to work. If he's not in a hurry he can detour past Harper's Ferry and sees the Shepherdstown battlefield, "the bloodiest battlefield in West Virginia," almost daily. "I'm lucky to have my own Gettysburg address and lucky to teach at a fine University."

He resides less than two miles away from the Eisenhower Center, the focus of the latest effort to bring a gambling casino to Gettysburg. Roads that are already clogged with tourist buses would only grow more congested and immediately threaten land where opposing cavalries clashed. Fox's Gap, which traverses South Mountain, is under threat from a natural gas compression station. "All the sites" on the Top Ten "and many others are more than just history. They're outdoor classrooms." As a former military officer Snell said that staff rides over Civil War battlefields allow the opportunity for today's young military leaders to learn first hand from their counterparts of 140 plus years ago.

The Sesquicentennial observance of our country's greatest ordeal kicked off last year with the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid. Snell remembered greater numbers of people flocking to Harper's Ferry than in the past. It wasn't mere curiosity that brought them. Studying that interest leads Snell to conclude, "We have an opportunity to save the land for future generations." "We face a different threat due to the economy. Dollars are being slashed, staffs are being cut." Picacho Peak, which "opened just last year to great fanfare is now closed due to a lack of funds." "On the eve of the Sesquicentennial are we going to listen...or will we gamble that future away."

Jim Lightizer retaking the microphone said that the picture has not been all gloom and doom. He spoke of the important victories that have guaranteed the preservation of over 29,000 acres of land. In Virginia, for example, the C.W.P.T. has worked successfully with governors and the legislature in achieving recent victories. The cost of preservation can be enormous, though, Lightizer citing the $12,000,000 that was needed to save the Slaughter Pen at Fredericksburg. Without that effort much of the Fredericksburg battlefield would have been lost not only to future generations, but ours as well. In Franklin, Tennessee, where most of the battlefield had been paved over, a local group is ”reclaiming the battlefield. Real history is being brought back."

"These are our outdoor classrooms, where future generations can learn. It is open space. History is who we are, why we are, and the way we are."

To visit the Civil War Preservation Trust Web site follow this link.

]]> News http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1027 Fri, 14 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400 Blighted Gray Rain http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1025 There's more to report on the 2010 Gettysburg Seminar, but those stories will have to wait for another day, or two, or five. In the meantime, while you're drumming your fingers in anticipation, here's a book to consider adding to your collection or downloading to your eReader.

This somehow all seemed interconnected: gray sky, rain, Gregory Coco's book "A Strange and Blighted Land," and Peggy Seeger's version of "O the Wind and Rain" playing on the radio. I'd never heard it from her before, but it was dark and haunting with the sparest of musical accompaniment. The song, with countless variations and titles, each touching on the same theme, has been around for something like 350 years. Songs like this, that tell a story, will never die. To listen to Peggy's version, follow this link.

One thing that has always struck me when standing on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg and looking across the expanse of field, past the Emmittsburg Road, to the woods from which Pickett's, Trimble's, and Pettigrew's troops emerged on July 3rd, 1863 is how difficult it is to imagine 13,000 plus men standing in formations spread out over a mile wide front. Nearly everyone has been in a large concentration of people, at a ballgame, a concert, a rally, a parade, but still it's hard to visualize what Union troops saw that day. We can read their individual accounts, all of which are near unanimous in describing feelings of jaw slacking awe, but as non-participants 147 years later we'll never be able to fully comprehend that moment no matter how vivid our imaginations.

Likewise, unless we've personally experienced combat, we really haven't got a clue, knock wood, as to the smoke, noise, disorientation, fear, savagery, bloodlust, bravery, cowardice, screaming, yelling, calm, mayhem, hiss, thuds, and explosions that surrounds a soldier. We're mere bystanders who flip through photos that will horrify us to a point, but we're inevitably spared by editors or censors who chose not to let us see the real gore, the stuff that shows a head half blown off or entrails hanging down to the knees or a still smoking stump where nanoseconds before a limb was joined to flesh and bone . When we walk through Gettysburg today we don't step on bodies, body parts, or in pools of blood, and we certainly don't have the stench of thousands of bloated, rotting bodies wafting through our nostrils making us puke our guts out.

So I leave you with these passages from "A Strange and Blighted Land," Gregory Coco's somber and reflective recollection of the battlefield as told by those who walked across its landscape days after two armies seeking the annihilation of the other moved away. This is one we should all read, to remind us of the stillness that returns following the quieting of the guns and the willingness to sacrifice and lay down lives.

"Boots with a foot and leg putrifying within, lay beside the pathway, and ghastly heads, too - over the exposed skulls of which insects crawled - whole great worms bored through the rotting eyeballs. Astride a tree sat a bloody horror, with head and limbs severed by shells, the birds having banqueted on it, while the tattered uniform, stained with gore, fluttered dismally in the summer air.

"Whole bodies were flattened against the rocks, smashed into a shapeless mass, as though thrown there by a giant hand, an awful sight in their battered and decaying condition. The freshly turned earth on every hand denoted the pits, from many which legs were thrust above the scant covering, and arms and hands were lifted up as though pleading to be assigned enough earth to keep them from the glare of day."

Sophronia Bucklin

"On the north side of Big Round Top and near the summit I saw the whitening bones of a Johnny who had killed and wounded 17 of our men during the night. He rolled a rock as big as a bushel basket ahead of him, while he crawled behind it. He could see our men toward the sky, while they could see only the flash of his gun, which they shot at all night. At the dawn he could not retreat, and our boys got him. They could not dig a grave there. They cut brush and laid it across him...and carried dirt and weighted down the ends of the brush. His head had rolled down hill some 10 feet; his shoes with the bones of his feet had fallen sidewise and lay there. A soldier (convalescent) of the Pennsylvania Reserves, who was on the top that night, and whose brother was killed by this rebel, showed me and explained as above."

John Campbell, veteran of Battery C, 4th United States Artillery

]]> Books and Publications http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1025 Thu, 13 May 2010 04:00:00 -0400