Posted on 06/22/2005 9:43:16 PM PDT by quidnunc
Now that it's officially summer, here's my advice to parents who want to continue teaching their kids during the next two months and learn something themselves: visit Civil War battlefields. I probably overdid it with my own children, visiting about 35 in all, but here are my top five:
1. Gettysburg (July 1863)
Much as I'd like to make a surprise choice, there's no avoiding Gettysburg's primacy and sadness, with over 50,000 soldiers becoming casualties over three days.
Driving and walking this Pennsylvania battlefield explains much: the big rocks of Devil's Den were indeed devilish, and the awesome difficulty of "Pickett's Charge" — across a vast expanse, sloping slightly uphill — makes it seem that Robert E. Lee's hope that day was for God to intervene. (That's what Michael Shaara suggested in his fine novel, "The Killer Angels"; it's well worth reading before a Gettysburg visit.)
2. Antietam (September 1862)
The 30-acre Maryland cornfield through which soldiers charged and countercharged is still a cornfield; the farm road worn down by erosion and called Sunken Road until it gained a new name at the battle, Bloody Lane, is also a good place to meditate on 23,000 casualties incurred in one day.
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(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
This guy is clueless.
I experienced Civil War battlefields the opposite way from how he did. My parents didn't drag me to them. I dragged THEM to them.
What I found was that no 150-year-old field tells the story of that era. The truth of what happened can only be found in the writings of those who lived at that time.
In the 8th grade I created a history project by taking moody slides of the battlefield, interspersing them with photos of living and dead young soldiers and setting it to music.
The song was the heart-rending "Home" by Mac Davis.
Halfway through the 4 minute presentation, the teacher made me shut it down.
Too haunting and emotional for 13 year olds.
Yep. The South was fighting for states rights and today we are still in that battle.
I have visited a number of Civil War sites. The most moving I have visited is Shiloh, which is probably the most complete and undisturbed of all the sites. It is huge and has an enormous number of cannons throughout the park..
My great-grandfather was a young Private in an Indiana artillery battery, and fought in the battle to take the mountain. I visited the site a year ago, and tried to imagine what it would have been like for him during the attack. The personal connection to the location adds a new dimension to the experience.
I saw them too.
Agreed. I have visited the field twice. The first time was without incident. The second time was July 3.
It was sunny and about 90 degrees outside but when we got to the Wheatfield and Devil's Den, for some reason, it got freezing cold. Other people we talked to at the visitor center believed something was a bit "off" that day as well.
Lookout Mountain is haunted, too.
I can't recall any threads like that, but I'll take your word for it. I will say that I engaged a hysterical woman from the Gettysburg area in a debate about the Battlefield restoration there. She was a borderline "greenie" that was AGAINST the restoration of the Battlefield because it involved logging certain tracts to restore the tree line to its "1863 look". I'm generally in favor of the Park Service's efforts in this regard, though I must say that I miss the observation tower.
Wouldn't doubt that at all. I also would not want to hang out around the Sunken Road at Antietam during the night.
Driving home from Chattanooga once, when we lived in Tennessee, I got the shakes so bad I had to stop on the side of the interstate for 20 minutes.
I've never been to Sharpsburg. My husband and I were going to go once, but we made a wrong turn and ended up in Manassas. The battlefield was closed (it was the year of the Gingrich government shut down - and I wish he'd held the line, too!), so we spent the day at the city museum and the antique shops.
I don't. The only purpose that thing served was that it was an excellent reference point when orienting the map.
"See that line of trees just below the ugly grey tower?"
My kids have a great time there, when they were very small I told them they weren't allowed to climb on the cannons, but they could climb on "Grandpa Dent's cannons" (if nobody was looking).
Oh my word, EVERY thread about development and sprawl end up the same way. I say I am opposed to strip-malls being built on historic areas and I'm torn to pieces, with the pro-development wolves here falling on me as on a sick deer.
The greenie in Gettysburg was an ignorant fool, as most of them are. We do need to take down some trees to restore the battlefield to its original condition. Pennsylvania will still have plenty of trees. But if we're going for real authenticity there we need to take down the Wax Museum, the McDonald's, and the KFC--and that's not going to happen. This is my point exactly: once those things go in, they're there for good; you can't get the historic site back.
Thought you'd like to see this ping.
My great-grandfather's brother was killed in that battle. It was a bloody one.
Franklin battlefield is largely built over, but evocative nonetheless.
I live in Atlanta, which is of course notorious for wrecking out historic sites. Most of the Battle of Atlanta has disappeared under urban development . . . little bits survive here and there, but you have to know where they are. Our house sits just below Johnston's River Line north of the Chattahoochee -- there are earthworks all up and down the woods in back of us. When we were looking for a house, we looked at one that had a whole complex of trenches and gun emplacements in the back yard. The house was impossible, so we didn't buy it, but somebody did -- and built a garage on top of the gun emplacement! (Idiots. Figures that idiots would buy that awful house.)
Very surprised Chickamauga isn't on the list. In terms of preservation and ability to see what it was like, Chickamauga is among the best (outside Gettysburg and maybe one or two others). But certainly it should rank in the top 5.
Prolly didn't make the list because we chased them d**n Yankees back to Tennessee at Chickamauga and Dr. Olasky prolly doesn't want to advertise that fact.
I'll also add that the Wilderness battles were fought on and around my g-g-g-g-g-g-g grandpa's farm. They destroyed the farm and family sold it 10 - 20 years after the War of Northern Aggression.
I've never been, but I'd like to. More to see the farm than the battlefield. And our son's namesake lost his arm at the battle of Vicksburg.
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