Walkabout, Day 6
Apr. 8th, 2009 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthWell, as it turned out, I was much too tired last night to do much of anything, but it was a good day (if not, I'll grant, a good kind of tired.)
The day dawned bright and cold, and with the hope of little to no pending rain (to judge from the sky) I had high hopes that the weather would enable me to walk, aside from the 40 degree temperatures. With that in mind, I bundled up as best I could (I only have a jacket with me, but I wore two shirts beneath...) and set out to Shiloh Battlefield.
Shiloh is in the middle of no where. It has no strategic value. It's named after a small church, and the name means "Place of Peace." There's no reason for anyone to go there except, I suppose, Sunday services - and Pittsburgh Landing, which was the dock on the Tennessee which Grant had used to drop his troops off (Shiloh is located just north of the border with Mississippi, and twenty some-odd miles north of Corinth, which was a major rail hub for the South). Which is probably why, in early 1862, Grant decided to set up his camp there, and why he was confident that no one would bother to attack, and thus he didn't really entrench or otherwise disperse his troops to protect them (that and the fact that the Confederates were thought to be unwilling to come out and fight.) The war was still young, and people were still pretty naive on both sides. In fact, most of Grants troop were green, and they were in Shiloh for sometime, training.
Meanwhile, A.S. Johnston, CSA, decided it would be the perfect time to march up from Corinth and attack. He meant it to be a surprise, but mud and rain delayed him....but despite that, it was still a surprise, and he took the northern army completely by shock and amazement early in the morning of April 6th, to the extent that the Union men had had breakfast cooking and many were half dressed (the Southerns, as they stormed the camps, stopped to steal food and all manner of other loot). The Northern Troops were, after all, green - but so were the Southerners. It didn't take long for the Union to start putting up serious resistance all along their front, and the fighting was fierce amongst those who hadn't fled all the way to the Landing in the back; particularly bad was the battle in the center of the Union line, where General Prentiss had his forces standing firm to give the rest of the army time to organize. They held most of the day, and repulsed many Confederate charges (the bullets whizzing through the air sounded like a swarm of hornets to the Confederates, and thus this place has entered history as the hornets nest). It seemed impregnable (the entire area is thickly wooded with underbrush and such) until the South lined up 60 or so cannon about 500 yards way, and opened fire. I recall from the Burns documentary that they simply say "the Hornet's Nest exploded," which seems pretty likely. A Union general was killed, and soon the Confederates had surrounded the forces still fighting in the area, and captured 2200 men, including Prentiss himself.
The North was driven back on all sides, but the Southerns were exhausted too, and in mourning - for A.S. Johnston had been killed (the highest ranking general on either side to be killed in the entire war) by a wound that might have only cost him a leg if only he'd gotten treatment in time. And so P.T.G. Beauregard took command, and ordered a halt. What he didn't know, as he prepared to renew the attack and force the Union troops into the river, the next day, was that reinforcements equal to another entire army under Gen. Buell had arrived during the night. In fierce fighting on April 7th, the North retook the field and drove the Confederates into retreat.
The battle is primarily important, though, because of the effect it had at home. Nothing was won or lost of any value - and despite that the day had caused more casualties than all previous battles and wars fought by the USA - combined. Neither side had been willing to back down - the Southerners had thought the North cowardly and not really invested in this war, and the Northerners had thought the South similarly - now everyone knew that it was going to be a long and bloody conflict. And of course, as in the other battles, casualties were astronomically high - Confeds brought 45,000 and lost 11,000 and the Union 66,000 and lost 13,000 - but the Union number is deceptive, since 18,000 of those only arrived the second day when casualties weren't as heavy (for an example I learned yesterday, on the first day Sherman commanded a division with about 4,000 men, but on the second day, due to have casualties and even heavier straggling, that division had only 1,000 men present for duty)
Right. History lesson over.
Because of the time difference, I was up early, and I arrived at the park not long after it opened at 8. I stuck my head in the visitors center, which had a tiny museum, and then watched the orientation film, which has to be the best and most interesting one I've ever seen. Filmed in 1956, it's kind of fuzzy around the edges, but it wasn't at all wishy-washy, and the reenactors, for once, acted the way Civil War soldiers really did in general - no lines of troops who somehow (miraculously) stayed in formation after passing through hills and ravines; instead, troops came forward in clusters, all running (no walking, thank god!) and shot as soon as they could (not in ordered waves of fire!). Anyone who knows about the Civil War knows that, in general, this was how things went - depending on the terrain and the officers and men involved, there might be one organized volley, but after that they all took cover and maintained the line as best they could (if defending) and usually charged in vaguely v-shaped formations (if possible) or otherwise also as best they could, and every man fired as fast as could unless ordered otherwise (in some instances when charging difficult positions men were told not to fire until they were close because if they stopped to load they'd be killed or maimed). So the film was, imo, awesome and well done - to the extent that I bought a copy. The reenactors (who I think might have actually been actors in this instance) did an awesome job - they tromped through deep mud in their messy clothing, took of their shirts when operating cannon (hot work!) and ran and jumped over fences - no middle aged men here! :)
The battlefield is very pretty, and though it's relatively lightly monumented, it's heavily plaqued by the park management. These plaques mark the location of pretty much every unit, and often follow those units throughout the day, which means that as you stand in a location you can clearly see the lines of battle even when there aren't monuments marking the route. I picked up the CD auto tour (I did this for the first time at Chickamauga, having found myself wishing while at Antietam and more so at Gettysburg that my car ride had some kind of narration) and drove to the main places and then walked around a bunch. I was very pleased to see that unlike the other battle fields, most of the visitors here did at least some walking. I think this is in part because more of the sections of the battlefield are inaccessible otherwise, but even more so because no one is going to come to Shiloh unless they're pretty serious about this whole thing - it's a pain to get to and it's in the middle of no where. :)
I also took Jonie on a lot of the walks - now that I've tired her out once I've been trying to maintain her level of exhaustion, but it ain't easy! - and she gave me a bit of a scare. I only visited one section of the battlefield that seemed isolated enough to take her off leash, on a road not part of the normal tour and no one else around, and it went pretty well until I got into the woods, when there were too many tempting things around, and she went off and didn't come back for a good 5 or 10 minutes. She had me scared, and I was just starting to look for her in earnest when she came back, and after that I caught her as quick as I could (which wasn't all that quick, as it turned out) - but she got a good run around, and she did, after all, come back. I think that if I had a pocket full of treats and could start rewarding her when she comes, she'd listen better - I just haven't found the place to pick these up yet.
My thoughts yesterday mostly tended to patriotism. Ever since I was a child, I've wondered a simple question: would I have fought? When I was young, I declared yes - I'd have disguised myself as a boy and gone of to war. But even then, I harbored doubts, and as an adult, knowing myself, I can say honestly that no, I wouldn't have. I suspect that I wouldn't have even joined the main support efforts - though it would have depended on many factors such as my age and whether or not I was married with a family. In all likelihood, I suspect I'd have been active on the homefront, but still very much at home. If I were a girl. It gets to be a much thornier question if I presuppose that I was born male. Because at my core, I am a patriot. I wasn't sure about that until 9/11, but that left me with no doubt. And I might not have had a choice - hundreds of thousands of boys were conscripted. But would I have volunteered? I'd like to think I would have. What would it have been liked under fire? Would I have run away? Would I have distinguished myself? Would I have crested the hill and been killed in the first volley? I've rather come to the conclusion that the last of these is the case, for a funny reason. But I'll get to that later.
While this was on my mind, it got driven home by one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Spotting some interesting monuments, I pulled over by some other cars, and became curious by the actions of the men nearby: three of them had big, fancy cameras, and were avidly staring at the same tree. I started my walk, largely ignoring them - I assumed they were birders (they were) and that it probably wasn't interesting - but I kept glancing that way, and finally I noticed a very, very large nest in the tree in question. This caused me to pause, and I looked more closely, and there, perched near the top of the tree, perfectly placed on an open branch with no thick foliage around it, was a bald eagle.
I've seen a bald eagle in nature once before, in Maine, but it was at a distance, and it was flying - I'd never have known what it was if it hadn't been pointed out to me by those who did. This, however, there was no mistaking. And it definitely drove home my days' theme, too. Bald Eagles are very noble looking birds; they perch very straight and move their heads without a bobble as they look for prey. Apparently, there was a second somewhere or other (no one had seen it yet) - a mating pair, and it wasn't clear to me but it sounded like they might have some baby birdies too.
I can't really say why I love my country, but I do. I think it has tons of problems, but I also think that I wouldn't, ultimately, want to live any place else, I'm proud to say I'm a citizen of this nation. Whatever happens, whatever goes wrong or right, however ashamed I sometimes am of some of our constituencies, I know that the pendulum swings both ways, and everyone's voice gets heard. If it's sometimes tragic that we've developed two groups of people who are so divided, often over close to nothing, that compromise has become villainy, well, all I know is that the only person whose behavior I can control is my own, and I can behave in what I consider an appropriate fashion. If I was prepared to foment bloody revolution over the election of McCain, still it was because I didn't believe that he could really win in a fair fight, and I can't watch the system be subverted any longer.
While in the visitor's center when I first arrived, I arranged to go on one of the tours being offered - a discussion of part of the second days battle (of which it was the 147th anniversary) marked as "difficult" and promising walking off the beaten path up and down hills and through some of the many ravines in the park. This I did, meeting up with maybe 15 others and a park volunteer, and it has proven to be one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had on a battle field. Our guide, Bjorn (I think), was very knowledgeable, and one of the major themes of the discussion was historiography - in this case, how we remember the battle and how the battle is memorialized - or, in other words, exactly the kind of things I was talking about a few days ago, but this time with some cold hard fact and solid information about some of the controversies involved. I thought it was great, and he and I talked a lot over to one side - me as a history major and he as one too - it turned out he lives in Chicago and works at a rare books store which specializes in Civil War-related materials, where I will DEFINITELY be visiting when I'm in Chicago in May.
The first cool thing about this was getting to go traipsing through the woods. We mostly followed the route taken by McClernand's troops, and it involved going up and down ravines. The guide aptly noted early on that we should pay attention to our own behavior as we went through the thick underbrush - we started as an ordered line of people (Granted in single file rather than side by side) but it didn't take long before we were scattered, and some of us kept up with the leader and some of us didn't, as we had to take side paths in order to find a clear way through and not get thwacked by branches. And even then, sometimes we made mistakes, as testified to by the fact that I have two nasty scrapes on my leg caused by thorns, and those same thorns caught my sleeve so badly that I had to have help getting myself extricated - same as would have happened to a large group of men going through the woods, except that unlike us, there were some 3500 of them, and they were under fire from the Confederates.
I promised I'd touch on why I thought I'd get killed in the volley. During the hike, my natural stubbornness kicked in, which meant that I felt obliged to be in front (and I was in good enough shape to do it) - I was generally one of the first to crest any rise, near the head of the line. Since, in the war, this would have been an excellent way to get killed very dead as you would be subject to the very first enemy volley, I'm inclined to think that I wouldn't have lasted long - assuming I had the nerve to go at all, which somehow, I think I would have (but maybe I'm flattering myself; it's not like I've ever been under fire, and I'm sure I can't begin to imagine how terrifying it is).
The second cool thing was definitely talking about the historiography and the making of the park. Among many stories, the most interesting pertained to a marker about a Confederate force under Cleburne, who apparently descended into a ravine with 800 men. The general went back for ammunition, and (according to the marker) reported than when he returned only 58 men were in still fighting. Now, this is pretty carefully worded - and means exactly what it says. 742 men were no longer there and fighting. However, many are apparently reading this to mean that a massacre took place, and that the 742 men were slaughtered. But that's not what it says - and records, such as there are for the Confederacy, indicate that when all was said and done Cleburne's units didn't suffer more than the usual percentage of casualties at the battle (generally 10 - 20 percent). But this is become a big (and still ongoing) political issue, for people want the non-existant massacre to be commemorated. Public memory is a funny, funny thing.
The walk went long, and by the time it ended I needed a restroom asap, which meant that I fled the vicinity. I also wanted to get back to the bookstore before it closed, because it turned out that the information the monument controveries was largely drawn from a book by a guy named Smith, and I wanted to buy a copy, because, as I've already discussed extensively, I think public memory is very interesting and very significant as a topic. This I did, but at the cost of not really getting to say a proper thank you and good bye to the guide. But I bought my book, went to the bathroom, and got ready to leave - and there he was, talking to another member of the group. I joined their conversation (inelegantly, as it turned out, but not unwelcomely) and got some recommendations on books which I'm going to note down more so that I won't forget them - about Chickamauga, by Cuzzins, a book about the Civil War in media by a guy named Gallagher, and "This Republic of Suffering," by Faust, which is about the romance with death during the period.
All in all, I didn't get in my car to leave until nearly 5 local time, and within an hour it became clear to me that I shouldn't be steering a vehicle. But of course, Shiloh was in the middle of no where, and so I pressed on, determined to get somewhere (read: to route 65) before I stopped. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't pleasant, and I promised myself that I'd get off at the first promising exit on the interstate, which is exactly what I did, finding one with three hotels which might take the dog, and a Cracker Barrel (I didn't actually WANT Cracker Barrel, but I lacked the energy to hold out for a different eating establishment. In the end, it all worked out remarkably well, but I was too tired to think straight, and ended up going to sleep at 9 local time (to wake up at about 6:30...) ...and here I am!
Shiloh was everything I'd hoped, and I think I need to try to go to more battlefields on their anniversaries - or at least figure out a way to take more guided tours, because doing so was AWESOME. Today I sketched out some plans for the next few days - today I'll stop in Nashville and visit the Botanical Gardens (I want to see tulips, which are blooming out this way); tomorrow I'll figure out something to do in Knoxville; and I think, based on my dad's suggestion, I'll try to pass through the Cumberland Gap the day after...but that's all I've got. :) I've already covered about 1500 miles, and I've got a ways to go to arrive in Sussex on the 12th, in preparation for the baseball game... (oh, so excited!!)
The day dawned bright and cold, and with the hope of little to no pending rain (to judge from the sky) I had high hopes that the weather would enable me to walk, aside from the 40 degree temperatures. With that in mind, I bundled up as best I could (I only have a jacket with me, but I wore two shirts beneath...) and set out to Shiloh Battlefield.
Shiloh is in the middle of no where. It has no strategic value. It's named after a small church, and the name means "Place of Peace." There's no reason for anyone to go there except, I suppose, Sunday services - and Pittsburgh Landing, which was the dock on the Tennessee which Grant had used to drop his troops off (Shiloh is located just north of the border with Mississippi, and twenty some-odd miles north of Corinth, which was a major rail hub for the South). Which is probably why, in early 1862, Grant decided to set up his camp there, and why he was confident that no one would bother to attack, and thus he didn't really entrench or otherwise disperse his troops to protect them (that and the fact that the Confederates were thought to be unwilling to come out and fight.) The war was still young, and people were still pretty naive on both sides. In fact, most of Grants troop were green, and they were in Shiloh for sometime, training.
Meanwhile, A.S. Johnston, CSA, decided it would be the perfect time to march up from Corinth and attack. He meant it to be a surprise, but mud and rain delayed him....but despite that, it was still a surprise, and he took the northern army completely by shock and amazement early in the morning of April 6th, to the extent that the Union men had had breakfast cooking and many were half dressed (the Southerns, as they stormed the camps, stopped to steal food and all manner of other loot). The Northern Troops were, after all, green - but so were the Southerners. It didn't take long for the Union to start putting up serious resistance all along their front, and the fighting was fierce amongst those who hadn't fled all the way to the Landing in the back; particularly bad was the battle in the center of the Union line, where General Prentiss had his forces standing firm to give the rest of the army time to organize. They held most of the day, and repulsed many Confederate charges (the bullets whizzing through the air sounded like a swarm of hornets to the Confederates, and thus this place has entered history as the hornets nest). It seemed impregnable (the entire area is thickly wooded with underbrush and such) until the South lined up 60 or so cannon about 500 yards way, and opened fire. I recall from the Burns documentary that they simply say "the Hornet's Nest exploded," which seems pretty likely. A Union general was killed, and soon the Confederates had surrounded the forces still fighting in the area, and captured 2200 men, including Prentiss himself.
The North was driven back on all sides, but the Southerns were exhausted too, and in mourning - for A.S. Johnston had been killed (the highest ranking general on either side to be killed in the entire war) by a wound that might have only cost him a leg if only he'd gotten treatment in time. And so P.T.G. Beauregard took command, and ordered a halt. What he didn't know, as he prepared to renew the attack and force the Union troops into the river, the next day, was that reinforcements equal to another entire army under Gen. Buell had arrived during the night. In fierce fighting on April 7th, the North retook the field and drove the Confederates into retreat.
The battle is primarily important, though, because of the effect it had at home. Nothing was won or lost of any value - and despite that the day had caused more casualties than all previous battles and wars fought by the USA - combined. Neither side had been willing to back down - the Southerners had thought the North cowardly and not really invested in this war, and the Northerners had thought the South similarly - now everyone knew that it was going to be a long and bloody conflict. And of course, as in the other battles, casualties were astronomically high - Confeds brought 45,000 and lost 11,000 and the Union 66,000 and lost 13,000 - but the Union number is deceptive, since 18,000 of those only arrived the second day when casualties weren't as heavy (for an example I learned yesterday, on the first day Sherman commanded a division with about 4,000 men, but on the second day, due to have casualties and even heavier straggling, that division had only 1,000 men present for duty)
Right. History lesson over.
Because of the time difference, I was up early, and I arrived at the park not long after it opened at 8. I stuck my head in the visitors center, which had a tiny museum, and then watched the orientation film, which has to be the best and most interesting one I've ever seen. Filmed in 1956, it's kind of fuzzy around the edges, but it wasn't at all wishy-washy, and the reenactors, for once, acted the way Civil War soldiers really did in general - no lines of troops who somehow (miraculously) stayed in formation after passing through hills and ravines; instead, troops came forward in clusters, all running (no walking, thank god!) and shot as soon as they could (not in ordered waves of fire!). Anyone who knows about the Civil War knows that, in general, this was how things went - depending on the terrain and the officers and men involved, there might be one organized volley, but after that they all took cover and maintained the line as best they could (if defending) and usually charged in vaguely v-shaped formations (if possible) or otherwise also as best they could, and every man fired as fast as could unless ordered otherwise (in some instances when charging difficult positions men were told not to fire until they were close because if they stopped to load they'd be killed or maimed). So the film was, imo, awesome and well done - to the extent that I bought a copy. The reenactors (who I think might have actually been actors in this instance) did an awesome job - they tromped through deep mud in their messy clothing, took of their shirts when operating cannon (hot work!) and ran and jumped over fences - no middle aged men here! :)
The battlefield is very pretty, and though it's relatively lightly monumented, it's heavily plaqued by the park management. These plaques mark the location of pretty much every unit, and often follow those units throughout the day, which means that as you stand in a location you can clearly see the lines of battle even when there aren't monuments marking the route. I picked up the CD auto tour (I did this for the first time at Chickamauga, having found myself wishing while at Antietam and more so at Gettysburg that my car ride had some kind of narration) and drove to the main places and then walked around a bunch. I was very pleased to see that unlike the other battle fields, most of the visitors here did at least some walking. I think this is in part because more of the sections of the battlefield are inaccessible otherwise, but even more so because no one is going to come to Shiloh unless they're pretty serious about this whole thing - it's a pain to get to and it's in the middle of no where. :)
I also took Jonie on a lot of the walks - now that I've tired her out once I've been trying to maintain her level of exhaustion, but it ain't easy! - and she gave me a bit of a scare. I only visited one section of the battlefield that seemed isolated enough to take her off leash, on a road not part of the normal tour and no one else around, and it went pretty well until I got into the woods, when there were too many tempting things around, and she went off and didn't come back for a good 5 or 10 minutes. She had me scared, and I was just starting to look for her in earnest when she came back, and after that I caught her as quick as I could (which wasn't all that quick, as it turned out) - but she got a good run around, and she did, after all, come back. I think that if I had a pocket full of treats and could start rewarding her when she comes, she'd listen better - I just haven't found the place to pick these up yet.
My thoughts yesterday mostly tended to patriotism. Ever since I was a child, I've wondered a simple question: would I have fought? When I was young, I declared yes - I'd have disguised myself as a boy and gone of to war. But even then, I harbored doubts, and as an adult, knowing myself, I can say honestly that no, I wouldn't have. I suspect that I wouldn't have even joined the main support efforts - though it would have depended on many factors such as my age and whether or not I was married with a family. In all likelihood, I suspect I'd have been active on the homefront, but still very much at home. If I were a girl. It gets to be a much thornier question if I presuppose that I was born male. Because at my core, I am a patriot. I wasn't sure about that until 9/11, but that left me with no doubt. And I might not have had a choice - hundreds of thousands of boys were conscripted. But would I have volunteered? I'd like to think I would have. What would it have been liked under fire? Would I have run away? Would I have distinguished myself? Would I have crested the hill and been killed in the first volley? I've rather come to the conclusion that the last of these is the case, for a funny reason. But I'll get to that later.
While this was on my mind, it got driven home by one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Spotting some interesting monuments, I pulled over by some other cars, and became curious by the actions of the men nearby: three of them had big, fancy cameras, and were avidly staring at the same tree. I started my walk, largely ignoring them - I assumed they were birders (they were) and that it probably wasn't interesting - but I kept glancing that way, and finally I noticed a very, very large nest in the tree in question. This caused me to pause, and I looked more closely, and there, perched near the top of the tree, perfectly placed on an open branch with no thick foliage around it, was a bald eagle.
I've seen a bald eagle in nature once before, in Maine, but it was at a distance, and it was flying - I'd never have known what it was if it hadn't been pointed out to me by those who did. This, however, there was no mistaking. And it definitely drove home my days' theme, too. Bald Eagles are very noble looking birds; they perch very straight and move their heads without a bobble as they look for prey. Apparently, there was a second somewhere or other (no one had seen it yet) - a mating pair, and it wasn't clear to me but it sounded like they might have some baby birdies too.
I can't really say why I love my country, but I do. I think it has tons of problems, but I also think that I wouldn't, ultimately, want to live any place else, I'm proud to say I'm a citizen of this nation. Whatever happens, whatever goes wrong or right, however ashamed I sometimes am of some of our constituencies, I know that the pendulum swings both ways, and everyone's voice gets heard. If it's sometimes tragic that we've developed two groups of people who are so divided, often over close to nothing, that compromise has become villainy, well, all I know is that the only person whose behavior I can control is my own, and I can behave in what I consider an appropriate fashion. If I was prepared to foment bloody revolution over the election of McCain, still it was because I didn't believe that he could really win in a fair fight, and I can't watch the system be subverted any longer.
While in the visitor's center when I first arrived, I arranged to go on one of the tours being offered - a discussion of part of the second days battle (of which it was the 147th anniversary) marked as "difficult" and promising walking off the beaten path up and down hills and through some of the many ravines in the park. This I did, meeting up with maybe 15 others and a park volunteer, and it has proven to be one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had on a battle field. Our guide, Bjorn (I think), was very knowledgeable, and one of the major themes of the discussion was historiography - in this case, how we remember the battle and how the battle is memorialized - or, in other words, exactly the kind of things I was talking about a few days ago, but this time with some cold hard fact and solid information about some of the controversies involved. I thought it was great, and he and I talked a lot over to one side - me as a history major and he as one too - it turned out he lives in Chicago and works at a rare books store which specializes in Civil War-related materials, where I will DEFINITELY be visiting when I'm in Chicago in May.
The first cool thing about this was getting to go traipsing through the woods. We mostly followed the route taken by McClernand's troops, and it involved going up and down ravines. The guide aptly noted early on that we should pay attention to our own behavior as we went through the thick underbrush - we started as an ordered line of people (Granted in single file rather than side by side) but it didn't take long before we were scattered, and some of us kept up with the leader and some of us didn't, as we had to take side paths in order to find a clear way through and not get thwacked by branches. And even then, sometimes we made mistakes, as testified to by the fact that I have two nasty scrapes on my leg caused by thorns, and those same thorns caught my sleeve so badly that I had to have help getting myself extricated - same as would have happened to a large group of men going through the woods, except that unlike us, there were some 3500 of them, and they were under fire from the Confederates.
I promised I'd touch on why I thought I'd get killed in the volley. During the hike, my natural stubbornness kicked in, which meant that I felt obliged to be in front (and I was in good enough shape to do it) - I was generally one of the first to crest any rise, near the head of the line. Since, in the war, this would have been an excellent way to get killed very dead as you would be subject to the very first enemy volley, I'm inclined to think that I wouldn't have lasted long - assuming I had the nerve to go at all, which somehow, I think I would have (but maybe I'm flattering myself; it's not like I've ever been under fire, and I'm sure I can't begin to imagine how terrifying it is).
The second cool thing was definitely talking about the historiography and the making of the park. Among many stories, the most interesting pertained to a marker about a Confederate force under Cleburne, who apparently descended into a ravine with 800 men. The general went back for ammunition, and (according to the marker) reported than when he returned only 58 men were in still fighting. Now, this is pretty carefully worded - and means exactly what it says. 742 men were no longer there and fighting. However, many are apparently reading this to mean that a massacre took place, and that the 742 men were slaughtered. But that's not what it says - and records, such as there are for the Confederacy, indicate that when all was said and done Cleburne's units didn't suffer more than the usual percentage of casualties at the battle (generally 10 - 20 percent). But this is become a big (and still ongoing) political issue, for people want the non-existant massacre to be commemorated. Public memory is a funny, funny thing.
The walk went long, and by the time it ended I needed a restroom asap, which meant that I fled the vicinity. I also wanted to get back to the bookstore before it closed, because it turned out that the information the monument controveries was largely drawn from a book by a guy named Smith, and I wanted to buy a copy, because, as I've already discussed extensively, I think public memory is very interesting and very significant as a topic. This I did, but at the cost of not really getting to say a proper thank you and good bye to the guide. But I bought my book, went to the bathroom, and got ready to leave - and there he was, talking to another member of the group. I joined their conversation (inelegantly, as it turned out, but not unwelcomely) and got some recommendations on books which I'm going to note down more so that I won't forget them - about Chickamauga, by Cuzzins, a book about the Civil War in media by a guy named Gallagher, and "This Republic of Suffering," by Faust, which is about the romance with death during the period.
All in all, I didn't get in my car to leave until nearly 5 local time, and within an hour it became clear to me that I shouldn't be steering a vehicle. But of course, Shiloh was in the middle of no where, and so I pressed on, determined to get somewhere (read: to route 65) before I stopped. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't pleasant, and I promised myself that I'd get off at the first promising exit on the interstate, which is exactly what I did, finding one with three hotels which might take the dog, and a Cracker Barrel (I didn't actually WANT Cracker Barrel, but I lacked the energy to hold out for a different eating establishment. In the end, it all worked out remarkably well, but I was too tired to think straight, and ended up going to sleep at 9 local time (to wake up at about 6:30...) ...and here I am!
Shiloh was everything I'd hoped, and I think I need to try to go to more battlefields on their anniversaries - or at least figure out a way to take more guided tours, because doing so was AWESOME. Today I sketched out some plans for the next few days - today I'll stop in Nashville and visit the Botanical Gardens (I want to see tulips, which are blooming out this way); tomorrow I'll figure out something to do in Knoxville; and I think, based on my dad's suggestion, I'll try to pass through the Cumberland Gap the day after...but that's all I've got. :) I've already covered about 1500 miles, and I've got a ways to go to arrive in Sussex on the 12th, in preparation for the baseball game... (oh, so excited!!)
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Date: 2009-04-11 12:50 am (UTC)It's amazing to think how many people, even in northern states, think this way about Obama...and talk about a bad starting hand to get dealt...jeez.
I'm really kinda bummed out I got nothin good to say about any of the Civil War battlefields and museums you've gone to over the past week, though, to be fair, I have had a chance to look at your Flickr, where I've gotten to see lots of beautiful pix :)