(Hat tip Darrow Wood)

These fields can never be
simply themselves. Their green
seems such a tender green,
their contours so significant
to the tourists who stare

towards the far range of mountains
as if they are listening
to the page of history tearing
or to what they know themselves of warfare
between brothers. In this scenery

cows and cannons stand side by side
and motionless, as if they had grown here.
The cannons on their simple wheels
resemble farm carts, children
climb them. Thus function disappears almost entirely

into form, and what is left under
the impartial blue of the sky is a landscape
where dandelions lie in the tall grass
like so many spent cartridges, turning
at last to the smoke

of puffballs; where the only red
visible comes at sunset;
where the earth has grown so lovely
it seems to forgive us even as we are learning
to forgive ourselves.

–Linda Pastan, Heroes in Disguise: Poems

Seminary Ridge

David Pearson, 83rd New York

Unfortunately the photo is somewhat small because my cellphone camera was all I had, but I was in Green-Wood Cemetery earlier this afternoon and came across the headstone of Corporal David Pearson of the 83rd New York Volunteers. The 83rd was part of the First Corps and fought in Zeigler’s Grove on July 2 & 3, where Pearson became a prisoner of war. A quick search on Fold3 says that Pearson enlisted on May 27, 1861 and was mustered out on June 23, 1864. It is sometimes lost on us how well into the 20th century many Civil War veterans lived. Pearson applied for a pension on Novemeber 24, 1900 and lived until 1914. This headstone is one of the thousands laid in the past decade by Green-Wood Cemetery to mark the nearly 4,000 Civil War soldiers buried there. Here is the headstone next to the Pearson family monument.

Pearson family headstone

Finding the balance between preservation and development is a tough order.  On one hand, once historic land and structures are developed they are gone forever.  On the other, communities must have a tax base to thrive and prosper.  We all have a right to live in the present.  It is a mixed blessing, but the economic and housing crises have been playing a role in the preservation of Civil War battlefields.  A slower market means fewer buyers and lower property values, which in turn means owners are more willing to sell to preservationists.  This has been especially true at Gettysburg.

I have been to Gettysburg each of the past four summers and what I find endlessly compelling is the number of approaches one can take to studying the events that took place there.  Obviously there is the military aspect of the battle itself.  Then there is how the battle fits into the larger scheme of the war.  Next comes the history of the park as a place of memory and forgetting.  To me, the myths and meanings of the battle—and of the war itself—are the most interesting.  The uses and misuses of personal narrative (by the veterans) and of history (by everyone who comes after) are especially compelling now during the sesquicentennial, when so many of our assumptions about the war are under scrutiny.  Another aspect of Gettysburg that is often overlooked is its art.  Gettysburg holds one of the largest collections of outdoor sculpture in the world.  Artistically they have a great deal to tell us.  And of course there is the Cyclorama.  Later this month Gettysburg National Military Park will host the 2011 International Panorama Conference.

Detail of Franz Roubaud’s Battle of Borodino panorama/Moscow Poklonnaya Hill museum

Panoramas (or cyclormas, as they are called here in the United States) were a popular entertainment in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.  Before the advent of moving images they offered viewers a chance to experience an event multidimensionally, all for a mere dime, franc, or ruble.  Like historical movies, panoramas were not always true to real life. Nonetheless, they are beautiful works of art to be appreciated for their own merits.  This is only the third time the conference is being held in the United States.  Should you be in Gettysburg September 14-17, here are the details.

Last August the wife and I took a walking tour of the Battle of Brooklyn, which took place just down the street from where we live.  Halfway through the tour our guide made a passing remark explaining the likelihood of there being remnants of the battle, including almost certainly human remains, just a few feet below the sidewalk where we were standing at the moment.  What fascinates me about visiting historical sites is being in the exact place where history happened.  There is a continuity inherent in such an experience which grounds you with the people who came before and adds an immediacy to the past.  The rangers at Mysteries and Conundrums tell us of a recent discovery in a Culp’s Hill witness tree.

(Union breastworks at Culp’s Hill/Library of Congress)

We will see if there is a round three, but at least for now the casino initiative in Gettysburg has again been struck down.  I cannot say how happy I am.  This was very close.  I remember talking about it with some locals last summer when my wife and I were there and their telling us that the town was split almost evenly down the middle.