A
dead calm hangs over the battlefield of Antietam as
the two of us reach the top of a rise above an old farm
road. Union soldiers charged up this slope long ago
and half of them never marched back down. Historian
Ed Bearss and I are walking the ground to place those
distant events in the terrain where thy occurred, tracing
on foot the rolling fields that funneled so many men
to their deaths.
We
have approached this spot from a direction few take,
climbing a slope where the grass grows thick and untrammeled.
Bearss has led me along the route taken by a Union brigade
as it attacked the Confederates waiting in a sunken
road now known as Bloody Lane. We find ourselves silhouetted
against the sky within killing range of the enemy lines,
and the tension builds. It is September 17, 1862.
“You’re
now under fire,” says Bearss. “You’re
under fire from the artillery and you’re under
fire from the infantry, but you’re still advancing.”
As we close the distance, he relates the story of the
Irish Brigade, its aspirations and its failed dreams,
the golden harp on its emerald flag, and the Gaelic
war cry of its men. “Now we halt here,”
he continues, “and for the next thirty minutes,
at a range of less than fifty yards, the Irish Brigade
and the Confederates posted in the sunken road will
blaze away at each other.”
...The idea of preserving battlefields began while the
war still raged. Many of those at the Battle of Gettysburg,
for example, realized its significance as they fought
it. A few months later, in a famous address that every
schoolchild can recite, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
articulated how the struggle and sacrifice of the soldiers
had turned a swath of Pennsylvania farmlands into hallowed
ground. His words set the stage for those who took steps
to transform the landscape of war into a place to honor
the dead and inspire the living.
—From “The Landscapes of War”
by Scott Thybony
The
Landscapes of War
Scott Thybony
64 pages. Oversized 10”x13”
ISBN 1-58071-056-5
$9.95 
- OTHER TITLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
Shenandoah Road Guide by Rose Houk
- Blue Ridge Parkway Road
Guide by Rose Houk
- Birdwatcher’s Guide to Delmarva (Field Guide)
|
