but if you are raised in Mississippi and live in Tennessee then these battlefields are a ubiquitous reminder that a savage war was fought here
i grew up in places we would find relics...mainly bullets and minor things though serious hunters found larger intact pieces
i always had the fantasy of course ....finding a perfect saber
my grandfathers place on the Jackson-Clinton road had 20 acres and an old home and they found minie balls and small grape frequently
visits to Vicksburg were common for us given the bluffs were something of an anomaly and it was so close
we had redoubts all over
here in Nashville I lived near Shy’s Hill later in life and had redoubts on my hilltop
now I am just south of Franklin TN and can see the Winstead-Breezy Hill gap where Hood had his command post for his doomed assault on Schofield’s works
it's what forms our perspective down here that northerners except a few in Pennsylvania and Maryland don't grasp
I have been to Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Grand Gulf, Brices Crossroads, Iuka, Spring Hill, Chicamaugua, Lookout Mt, Okalona, Nashville, Franklin, Jonesborough TN, Fort Donelson, New Market, Pea Ridge, Champions Hill, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Stones River and Shiloh...likely forgetting a few....Selma...lots of little skirmish-battle spots
of those I think Shiloh wins easily as most interesting battlefield
Vicksburg sure has some big northern monuments though which are works of art by themselves
kids down here who pay attention and are raised right ...know these things...but I bet in another 100 years it will all be overshadowed by a New America that looks nothing like itself
just look how immigration transformed the North from those who fought for the Union in 1860s...I would wager a majority of northerners today have no kin or just one side who fought in the war whereas..us down here...the losers as we are commonly called...still have overwhelming genetic ties to those who fought and died
i actually had this conversation with a friend from Illinois yesterday of German descent
i'm older parent and my boys are up to snuff
but i watch Gen X and younger and I have my doubts...too much kool aid...too much time