Gettysburg

The battlefield lies still
On a hot summer day.
The dead forever sleep on yonder hill
Could there have been no other way?

Today I visited the Gettysburg Battlefield. It was a very hot summer day, much like the one faced by the soldiers who fought here. As I gazed at the marvelous monuments paying homage to the men who died in this battle, a cold wind filled the air. The ghosts of soldiers 'past' walked with me as I wandered the hills, forests and fields. They were ill-fed and clothed, some knowing not why they fought here. I could hear their cries for help. I spoke softly and reached out a hand, but they could neither see nor hear me. The roar of cannon was deafening. Smoke covered the fields and orchards and rose to darken the blue skies of this beautiful 'valley of death.

After leaving the battlefield, there was a visit to the Gettysburg National Cemetery. The silence was indescribable. I viewed, in awe, the thousands of graves in memory of those who lost their lives in all wars. But my eyes and heart were pulled to the Civil War tombs -- probably because this was 'our' war, where brother fought against brother and friend against friend.

I stood where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address in 1863, and was reminded of a part of this address --

"that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain -- that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that
government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth."

I stopped at the gates of the cemetery for one last look at this now-placid part of my heritage. My thoughts of this war as of every war:

The fife and drum sound no more
For those who died that day.
My dictum, as before,
Could there have been no other way?