You can see them while you pass by on the highway. These Civil War battlefields. They stretch out, mostly empty except for canons and plaques bearing pertinent information. A silhouette of buildings in the far off distance. The neighboring road, with it's speed limit of 55, sends travelers by at an alarming rate. You could almost blink and not realize they had gone by. Simply fields of grass lined with trees. An echo trapped in the present with no remaining purpose but to remind us of what took place on their soil.
I have never been very interested in visiting old Civil War sites. I remember being a child and my dad would read books about the Civil War. He read them because his dad read them. They would soak up the history as if it were a great novel. As if John Steinbeck had dreamed it up. There were also documentaries. These showed old black and white photographs of men in uniform both before and after famous battles. I did not appreciate the beauty of those photos like I do now. In the infancy of photography, men would have to stand still for great lengths of time while their image was formed into glass plates covered in chemicals. Standing still like the fields do today. Frozen in time forever.
I grew up in Florida but my Dad's family was from Pennsylvania. They would talk about visiting these famous battlefields like it would be a fun way to spend the day. I guess my 8-year-old self would rather have gone to Disney World or someplace like that. I never did visit them. Sure I have been to old forts and museums, but never to a place where blood was actually spilt. Never to a place where a musket was fired or a bayonet thrust forward. One time I saw a canon fired with a fake cannonball. It echoed it's massive BOOM while smoke poured into the air around us. A smoke much thicker than that of the Flor de las Antillas sitting in the ash tray next to me.
Seeing the fields today, I try to image what it was like to walk in them so many years ago.
Picture this: You are a Civil War soldier. It doesn't really matter from what side. You wander out into some random field on a bright sunny day. The kind of day better spent at the beach or fishing or whatever. On the other side you see what can only be described as yourself wearing a different color outfit. And this field has been chosen for you to engage in combat, the hope being that you can cause more of that color to fall to the ground than that color can do to your color. Painted a new color of red.
Stay with me here. I'm not trying to send you a hidden message about some war happening in a country you have never been to. I just want to paint a picture.
These fields might have once been the farms of poor American people. Some of them young families; some of them old men. Celebrating the birth of a first born or the wedding of a daughter. Growing corn, wheat, maybe tobacco. Some of these fields were roads that took you from one town to another. Maybe well traveled or maybe a little known shortcut. I am not a historian and I didn't read the same books my dad did. I did watch Gettysburg on television a few times. I couldn't tell you exactly what happened in these fields before Americans decided to quarrel in the grass. Perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about at all.
Today, what amazes me is that these fields are still here. There are no Walmarts on them. No hospitals or public schools. They stand empty along the paved roads that will take you from Best Buy to the winery 20 minutes west. Each year, the grass is covered in a layer of snow. In the spring, flowers will bloom from the dirt and birds will occupy the trees. The wind will rise while insects burrow below the soil. As commerce drives itself outward along their borders, pressing in, these fields will continue to stand as they did over 100 years prior to my birth. They are a constant reminder to us of what happened there.
I am not sure exactly what it is about an ordinary field that drives me into a state odd fascination. But today, my 29-year-old self just wants to walk among the grass. Roman Mars is constantly insisting that I always read the plaque and today that is just what I want to do. Could it be that I want to be connected to history in some way? After all, is preserving the past only done in an attempt to be useful to those living in the future? Or do we owe these battlefields preservation as penance for what we did there?
Maybe I'm just hoping to get a decent photograph that I can sell. Captured at 1/1000th of a second while motor cars race past the ghosts of horses and buggies. While my preferred method is photography, it seems that a painting would do this place more justice. My friends that paint can appreciate the labor and time spent that allows the artist to fully take in the scene. Searching for the details. My view is obscured by glass and the quick snap of a shutter. But the end result feels insignificant compared to the thought that this field will be here for a long time. Maybe forever.
