"The Battle in the Valley of the River of Death"
The last two days we have been to Chickamauga Battlefield. This weekend Sept 18-20, 2015 marks the 152nd Anniversary of the Chickamauga Battle. Saturday we got to participate in and see a demonstration at the Kelly Cabin. A battle that took place on September 19, 1863. A battle that included one major mistake that the men fighting that day were never able to recover from. It came in the heat of battle when the Union soldiers fired upon itself. Over the course of the two days of the battle 40.000 men from both the Union and Confederacy were either killed, wounded, or missing. The Snodgrass Cabin was turned into a field hospital. The remedy for shattered limbs were amputation and would have to be done in 15 minutes. Even though chloroform and ether were available it was in short supply and not at Chickamauga. Today, markers telling the story at each location of each unit, monuments that have been in place since 1893 and more recently tell the story of this battle and give a visual of where everything would have occurred and men died. It is a place that consists of rolling hills, and peace reigns as you hear the birds, crickets, and squirrels that marks the sounds of nature. Yet, as you enter each marker and read it and look up you see what must have been that day. You walk on grass and terrain that on that day 152 years ago was covered in bodies and blood. The land there was paid for in blood that demands our respect.
On Saturday, we witnessed the firing of an original battlefield cannon, not once but twice as the Park Ranger told the story of that terrible mistake that I discussed earlier. Then we got to see a demonstration of the men as they returned home from war in Sept 1865 and the difficulties they faced upon returning home to find everything gone and destroyed and unable to find their family or any remnants of it. Clay and I both were able to read a small part for this demonstration. The differences in the going to war and coming home of the men were extreme. The merging of men in uniforms and carrying weapons of that battle and seeing faces of the visitors to the park that day with our modern clothing and devices were surreal. It is hard to explain.
On Sunday, we explored the park in more detail. We drove the lines and viewed the markers and monuments and at the same time left a lot to still be explored. It never leaves your mind that you are walking were someone died, was wounded, or cried out to God for mercy after realizing what the battle meant they had done and yet to tamp it down for later as they lived what they were trained and fought hard until not just the end of the Chickamauga Battle those two days, but for the duration of the War that followed.
