Our annual Sibling Trip went well this year although it started off very rough. Arriving in Baltimore the first day, we had reservations for a minivan, reservations for lodging, and hungry stomachs. What we didn’t know was all the rental vehicles there were gone due to Hurricane Helene. We were afoot. We could always get other lodging and eat fast food, but when you have no vehicle to even leave the airport, that’s one problem we couldn’t find a solution to.
We were debating on what to do when Sister got a call. If we waited a while, they could give us a Ford Explorer that would hold four people. A miracle saved the whole trip. We gladly waited and about forty-five minutes later, we were packed and loaded, grateful a vehicle had come back for us to use.
We revisited Gettysburg because the last time we were there, Little Roundtop and Devil’s Den were closed to the public. Now open, we hit those spots on a foggy, gloomy day which added to the ambience. The NPS has really improved Little Roundtop. It’s much larger, has more interpretive signs and trails, and places to view the battlefield. With the fog and rain, it was easy to imagine gray uniforms charging the hill. Devil’s Den didn’t look changed at all except for one spot above it that was expanded with a new interpretative sign. We later went by the national cemetery where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous address. A park ranger talked with us for a long time, sharing history about the park and the cemetery. She pointed out the correct spot where Lincoln stood that day (not where the monument is) and gave warnings to Sister and Younger Brother about their planned trek up the mountain at Harpers Ferry the next day.
We spent most of our time around Richmond, Virginia. As capitol of the Confederacy, a lot of battles took place around it as the Union attempted to take it. The Museum of the Civil War downtown proved to be a good stop and a good education for those of us who don’t know the history as thoroughly as Sister. We started at the battles of 1862 and by the time we left, we’d visited battlefields of the 1865 autumn, not long before the war’s end.
Sister and Younger Brother decided to climb out of the Potomac River gorge to see a fort that guarded the river. The trail was steep and through thick forests, but they had grand views when they got there. While they were doing that, I climbed half a mile up a steep hill in Harpers Ferry to see Jefferson’s Rock. He was quoted as saying it was worth a trip across the Atlantic to see it. It isn’t any more. All I could see was trees and a little glimpse of the Shenandoah River far below. If someone would cut the trees, the view would be great, but until then, the only thing I got out of it was exercise.
The most sobering moments of the tour for me were the Gettysburg’s Valley of Death and Picket’s Charge, and the Sunken Road at Fredericksburg. Soldiers were commanded to cross barren fields and attack the enemy entrenched on the high ground. At all of those places, hundreds of soldiers died doing what they were told, even though it made no sense. None of those charges succeeded in anything but loss. Another moment was reading a quote from a Confederate woman who stated the blood spilled in the coming war would scarcely fill a thimble. How wrong she was! Nearly every house still standing from that time were used as hospitals and have floors stained with blood, way more than a thimble full. Hopes ran high at the beginning, but reality became very cruel.
In Fredericksburg, a memorial stands in honor of a heroic act of kindness during the Battle of Marye’s Heights above the sunken road. Richard Kirkland, a South Carolina CSA volunteer, loaded several canteens with water and jumped over the wall. He went into the space between the Union and CSA lines and gave water to the dying and wounded from both sides. Neither army fired at him as he rendered a drink to those he could reach. For two hours, they watched him tend the men on the ground before he returned to his company behind the wall. What amazing bravery to help those who needed help.
Also notable on this trip was the use of trenches during the later years of the war. They are still visible everywhere across landscape around the battlefields. It reminded me of the World War I trenches that can still be seen in Europe and how the war drug on and on because neither side could overrun the other.
I could go on and on about all we saw and read. We visited Cold Harbor, the Seven Days Battle, Battle of the Crater, Fredericksburg, Gaines’ Mill, Chickahominy Bluff, Garthright House, Spotsylvania, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and the house where Stonewall Jackson died. Several of the battle outcomes were based on minutes: one army arriving minutes before the other; reinforcements coming minutes before another attack; one army reaching a road or intersection before the other. Those minutes determined the outcome of the battle. Timing is everything, even in war.
It was a fascinating trip, but I was ready to come home. There are only so many war scenes I can think about before it gets depressing. My imagination is big enough and my heart sensitive enough to understand the horror of those places. But I’ll be ready when we next visit Vicksburg next year.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the Children of God. Matthew 5:9