Civil War Battlefields & Grown Sons
In preparation for our fall trip, I just finished reading Jeff Shaara’s travel guide Civil War Battlefields. This book was published in 2006 by Ballantine Books.
Jeff Shaara is the New York Times Bestselling author of Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure. His father was Michael Shaara the author of The Killer Angels, awarded the Pulitzer for Fiction in 1975 and which became the movie Gettysburg. Jeff notes sadly that his father’s book was never successful in the author’s lifetime. Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure are also civil war fiction novels, but I haven’t read any of them. I plan on doing so though, after reading Shaara’s travel guide.
What I most appreciate about Shaara’s Civil War Battlefields is his assumption that his reader knows nothing about the battles. Each chapter is a straight forward compelling explanation of the battle, the major players, the results, the tragedies, and the layout of the battlefield. He includes personal anecdotes and when you are done reading, you feel compelled to visit that battlefield. You understand the enormity of the gravity of the battle and despite my very strong Union blood, you feel compassion for both sides.
I have two ancestors that fought for the Union out of Michigan, one in the 10th Calvary and one in an Infantry unit, and I have no ancestors on either of my sides with any affiliations to the Southern half of the Civil War States. I am pure Northern blood, descending from England, Ireland, Scotland and Native American.
On our trip, we will be hitting many of the major Eastern campaign battlefields, so those were the chapters I read. And now, I really get it. We are starting in Gettysburg, then heading to Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania, then on to staying in Williamsburg, VA. We were planning a day trip to Richmond and then because of Shaara’s book I do not want to miss Petersburg.
I learned that Gettysburg took place not just in a field but in the town itself. I learned that Grant made some very horrible mistakes (along with other Union commanders) and that resulted in the loss of many Union soldiers. It horrifies me to think of the Union soldiers charging against the stone wall at Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg and being simply slaughtered by the Confederates. It horrifies me to imagine the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg in which a brilliant Union engineer spent months digging an underground cavern beneath Confederate lines in order to fill it with explosives. And then, because the Union troops who were trained to break through after the explosion were African-American and the Union command held them back at the last minute, untrained soldiers were sent and then slaughtered by the seasoned Confederates. The boys in blue were trapped inside the crater caused by the explosion and when the African-American troops were finally sent in, the rebels became even more angry, increasing their attack.
I am still thinking about the Union wounded trapped in the stalemate at Cold Harbor, lying in the field – if they moved sharpshooters got them. Grant could not come to terms with Lee to rescue his wounded and so they lay dying there for days.
I think of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg and the brave Confederates who ran right into death.
And mostly what I think about, is that many of the soldiers were the ages my sons are now. Young men in the prime of their lives, their first years venturing forth into the world, discovering who they are and what it is they are destined to do. No wonder there are so many ghosts at the battlefields.
Young men are brave, they are strong, they are energetic, but in so many ways, they are still tender. I think of all those boys in battle and their mothers back at home, worried sick. Mothers thinking about the years they devoted to nurturing their sons: tending to their bruises and cuts, keeping them safe and out of harm’s way, cooking their favorite foods, keeping watch over their illnesses, teaching them about life. All those special things we mothers do for our little boys and how fiercely we love them. And the biggest secret of all, if you have done your job halfway decently, your son loves you too.
Robert Olen Butler wrote a short story (and I can’t remember the name) about a mother whose son is off fighting in World War One and after he has been there a short time, she goes to see him – right in the midst of the battle. And while he doesn’t appreciate her visit, other soldiers who have been gone from home for much longer, want to be around her. I think her son does miss her, he just cannot allow those feelings anywhere near the surface or he won’t be able to function much.
When my eldest son went away to college for his first year, he got very sick. I was very worried. I wanted to come to his college and take care of him. He said, “Mom, I need to do this on my own. I have to learn to be a man.” And, I respected that. I am glad I didn’t go because it made us closer.
He would sometimes do a funny thing when he was home from college. Even though he had his own bedroom, sometimes during the day (he worked evening shift as a dishwasher) he would crash in his parent’s big queen bed. He would say that it helped him to sleep when he was having a hard time doing so.
When we visit the battlefields, I will be imagining my sons in the troops’ shoes. It is not only about who won and who lost and why it all happened – it is about all of those people who sacrificed their lives and their loved ones. What an overwhelming amount of grief there must have been in our nation with all of those mothers mourning their sons.
