Calm Before The ?

I was walking on the ridge this evening, Seminary Ridge that is, here in Gettysburg.  As I looked to the west I could see dark clouds gathering and if was any warmer today I would have thought a thunderstorm was coming in.  However, the weather man, or weather woman is only calling for rain for the next several days.  I could smell the rain in the air and the animals, squirrels and birds, seemed to know it was coming too.

As I remembered back upon my reading of the battle that happened here in July 1863, I recall that rain fell upon the soldiers that fought here on July 4th.  If they were Confederate, who were leaving Pennsylvania after their failed attempt to invade the north, their mood was one of sorrow and defeat.  If they were  Union, who were cautiously making sure the Confederates were indeed leaving, their mood was one of triumph as they had stopped the Confederate advance.  Many men lie in the fields surrounding the town, either dead, or dying and their agony was multiplied by getting soaked as they were unable to move to shelter.

I cannot walk these fields without imagining what this place looked like those almost 150 years ago and how it must have differed from the tranquil scene that one sees today.  These are the days of remembrance for me.  I think of the coming summer when Gettysburg will be the scene of remembrance of this great battle.  Hundreds of thousands of visitors are expected but on this day, on this ridge, I am alone.  Alone with my thoughts, of war and its aftermath and how this place was transformed these 150 years ago.

While war is never, ever the answer to anything, it is a fact of life in this broken world.  War is destruction and death.  War is grief and sorrow.  War is not pretty.  However, remembering this place and what happened here is important if we as a society learn something from the remembering.

As the dark clouds gather, and the people come, let us never forget the words of Abraham Lincoln, “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.”