The Battlefield
Bruce was a young man of 18 who was my pal. We had a lot in common besides the love of billiards. We loved history and especially Civil War battlefields.
One morning we met to walk into town. We went through the woods and wound up in Battlefield Park where the battle of Petersburg had been fought. This was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.
It was an eerie place, but I loved it. As I walked on the soft green spongy grass, a strange feeling came over me. I felt the presence of others. These weren’t just other people. These were people who weren’t supposed to be here, long dead people. I pushed them out of my mind.
We entered a small log structure. It appeared to be sleeping quarters for soldiers, probably officers, because the enlisted would have had tents. I noticed that these soldiers were a lot shorter than we were, well shorter than my companion anyway
.
Donna and Robbie were with us. These are supposed to be the original buildings but its hard to believe they could still be standing. This lady was short and she would have had to duck going in to this one. At least they had a tiny window. Officers might have had a cabin but I'm sure the average guy just slept in a tent on the ground and probably without a tent for the most part.
I've seen old photos of officers in tents.
The bunks
I'm pretty sure someone may have been using these bunks for something else in the present day but they sure look like sleeping would have awkward and miserable.
These logs were piled up inside of one of the cabins.
These bunks were short. I would have been uncomfortable on them but I wasn’t going to try one out. I’m only 5'1" and there could have been a soldier of about 5'3", I suppose. These cots were hard wood, built into the cabin walls. How they slept was beyond me.
I suffer from the Princess and the Pea syndrome. If there is a wrinkle in the sheet, I can’t sleep. A spider walking by would have done me in.
One of these buildings was labeled a Suttlers. That's Robbie. I looked it up on Wikipedia and found out that sutlers were merchants, not military who sold to the military but to other travelers as well. They were suppliers of non-military goods and needed to get a permit to set up and sell to the military. In some accounts it says that if they were outside the camp they could deal in prostitutes as well as the coffee, tobacco, sugar and whatever else they supplied.
Fire place in one of them. Obviously tourists if not troops were using these places for other things, judging by the beer can.
A cannon sat on a hill overlooking the battle site. This is where the weirdest thing happened. A chill came over me and I shivered. I could feel the earth vibrating under me. Bruce was nowhere about. Then I heard the noise.
The cannon was firing and I could hear gunfire and the screams. Someone was sobbing. There was smoke and blood and torn bodies. It was truly awful.
Just as suddenly as it began, it faded and again the green spongy lawn was back. Bruce was standing behind me somewhere. I could hear him calling my name. He said he’d called my name three or four times, but I didn’t seem to hear him.
We walked into town. I told him the minute we got to the USO that I needed paper and pencil. He knew me well enough to know I had to write. I wrote The Paths of Glory that day.
I did at one time have photos of the cannon on the hill because it was really there when I was there.
Another odd thing happened here. Before we reached the battlefield itself we were walking through the woods. There had been snow earlier and you could see patches of it in some spots but it wasn't cold. It was more like a New York spring.
I looked down at my feet in one place and instead of the ground, it looked like I was looking through a hole in the universe. It was weird because I felt like I was going to fall in and I was afraid of where I might come out. Bruce touched me about then and I looked up at him. Then I looked back at my feet and realized what I was seeing was the sky reflected in clear water in puddle of snow and ice.
I did take that right afterwards but it doesn't show it as clearly as I saw it then.
The whole park gave me the creeps a lot but I loved it and scary as it could be, I would love to go back and feel it all again. I'd take better photos this time. Years later I would learn in one of my journalism classes in college, you should always take clear notes and write down names of people in your photos. It would be interesting to see if I felt and heard again the things I did back then. I could, of course, have imagined it all but somehow I don't think so.