Shiloh

I sat down at the computer a few hours ago to update this blog. I haven't written anything in a while and I have had alot of things on my mind that I have been unable to verbally express to anyone. Not because of subject matter, because I don't really talk to many people. I'm not very social. I never really have been. I was going to write my opinions on the release of POW Bowe Bergdahl or about the gruesome cannibalistic murder of a local woman and the national coverage of it.

I got side tracked and started looking up ancestors and reading about Chattanooga history. Specifically during the Civil War. I've always been fascinated by the Civil War. Not so much the specifics of each battles or the strategies. I've always been interested in the people. The men who fought. The women who hid their sex and fought as men. The families that were left behind. The impact on small towns. The environmental impacts. The clothing of the era. The uniforms, etc.

Its not a subject that is "cool" or popular when you're young. Especially when you're trying to overcome the years you had braces, dorky glasses and still had baby fat. "Learning is dumb" is the general rule amongst the cigarette smokers with patched up jean jackets that I wanted to so desperately hangout with when I was 13. I spent a chunk of my youth hiding one of my deepest passions. You'd better believe I would still go to the occasional reenactment at Olustee...but I would always use the excuse to friends that it was just for research for a class at school. Secretly squealing with excitement at every glance in the sutlers tents.

Before my Dad joined the Navy when I was 5, we lived near Shiloh Battlefield. Some of my earliest memories are of me and my cousins climbing on cannons, running around the fields, picking wildflowers that grew beside the split-rail fences, playing hide and seek on The Sunken Road, catching tadpoles in Bloody Pond, wading in and climbing rocks at Rhea Springs...we basically lived at that battlefield. I knew basics. Blue - vs- Grey because of the kepi caps at the giftshop. I knew men had died on the grounds beneath my feet but I was too young to have an understanding of what "died" really meant.

My family would hangout at other places. Like Pickwick or the Rock Pile. But it was the memories of Shiloh that were emblazoned in my mind. When we moved to Maine, away from my cousins and the rest of my family, it was the memories of Shiloh that I fell asleep to. It was those stories that I wanted my parents to tell me over and over again. And as I got older, it was that place that I would study and do reports on. I won a 5th grade History Fair with my report on Shiloh. Shiloh was the key to all things positive in my memory and of my childhood.

For as long as I can remember I have had a reoccurring dream that's only a quick flash of getting married in the Peach Orchard. You know, because a place where there were 23,000 casualties is an incredibly romantic place to profess your love...

When I was in third grade my Dad got orders to Louisiana. There, my interest in American History and The Civil War blossomed. We would go to the Mansfield and Pleasant Hill battlefields and attend reenactments. They were definitely not as large or gorgeous as Shiloh but the eery calm was there. That addictive quiet. Mansfield is where I got my first Minie Ball. It was given to me by a man who worked at the museum. It was dug out of a tree. He gave them to kids who showed a genuine interest in the war. I definitely had that and apparently it showed on my face. I remember the museum had a fantastic collection of uniforms and photographs. I remember trying to read some of the letters displayed with their fancy cursive and having to get my mom to read them to me. She always obliged. Looking back, I think she just tagged along on mine and my dads outings to make it more of a family trip. Deep down I know she was much more interested in hanging out at home under the A/C and reading romance novels.

It was while we lived in Louisiana that we took our first trip to Chattanooga and Chickamauga. I fell in love. Point Park was almost magical. I had only seen pictures in books of the view from atop Lookout Mountain. My Dad visited there when he was a kid and told me stories. There was a picture of my grandparents posed by a cannon that always sat on the dresser in my parents house but those stories and those pictures could not prepare me for what my eyes saw. I still get happy little goose bumps when I go up there. And, Chickamauga was just awesome. I remember thinking how huge the monuments were. It held the same calm as other battlefields but also had a "tourist" vibe that I liked when I was that age.

It wasn't until my mid-20's that I found that part of me that loved battlefields and reading about The Civil War again. I was going through a divorce. We were two different people and I didn't even recognize myself anymore. It's like I had been on "auto pilot" for the duration of the marriage. We used to take weekend trips to Washington DC to see his brother and some of his friends. I could get him to go to places like The Lincoln Memorial but when it came to checking out battlefields or even taking a detour through Richmond on the way back home to Virginia Beach...he refused. He didn't understand why I wanted to go to those places. He didn't get it. That was one of the red flags of a failing marriage, that I finally saw.

After spending a year in Florida after the divorce, doing whatever it was I was doing down there...call it reliving highschool fantasies. I moved to the Chattanooga area. Since I've been here I haven't gone to the battlefield as much as I want to...or explored the historic markers and monuments off the beaten path but I know I will. We will. My daughters and I. I want them to have memories of playing in the shadows of History and grow up with a thirst for knowledge about the past and a respect for all those who came before us.

I want Chickamauga to be their Shiloh.