Stones River National Battle, April 5, 2013

Welcome to my newly created blog.  We have now been working as volunteers at Stones River National Battlefield for two weeks. 

This site became a national park in 1927, and the Visitor Center (middle photo) was constructed in the mid-1960s and upgraded nine years ago.

The first weekend we were here was drill training for cannon firing; of course, I needed to participate!  It was quite amazing; I can't imagine the roar and horror of 50 or 60 cannons firing, 3-4 rounds a minute, non stop throughout the battles.

There is so much to think about.  The other morning I wrote the following and will share it with you:

 Early morning fog rises
Sun burning through to the honey gold tall grass still standing.
Cotton did grow here, unpicked nobs stuffed into ears to block the booming cannons up ahead.
In the sunlight I scan and see the horror, the destruction, the dead and wounded men and horses littering the field as far as the eye can see.  
81,000 started New Year's Eve morning, predawn.  Nearly 1/3 of either side did not greet the morning of New Year's Day, 1863.  "God has granted a good New Year," General Braxton Bragg telegraphed Jefferson, Davis, President of the Confederate States. 
Union, confederate, animals all entangled with one another: dead, dying, cold, wet, they lay there.  One CFS soldier tripped over a near-dead Union soldier, asked what he could do, salvaged three blankets from fallen comrades to cover the shivering man and offered a sip of his canteen.  The blankets and the whiskey helped for a moment.