One thing leads to another...

Happily, I ran across a copy of Gary Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg a little while ago, and plan to take it with me when we quit this place, if for nothing else but the author's analysis of the rhetoric behind Lincoln's famous address on the occasion of the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg. (Were you required to memorize it in grade school? I was.)

I recall a business trip a long time ago, during which I visited a client in New Jersey. It may have been during my tenure at the artificial-intelligence startup I worked at before leaving for California and Borland. I do not recall why I was in New Jersey, or what it was that put me and the client's representative on the road, but I do recall we finished our business early and the representative—a much older, gray-haired man—suggested we drive back to his home town via Gettysburg.

We ended up driving around the battlefield for a while, and I recall we got out and walked around for a bit near an elevation called Little Round Top. Commemmorative markers were liberally embedded throughout the grounds of the Gettysburg battlefield; none of them meant anything to me, really.

And then I read a book about those early days of July 1863, and the only thing I remember of it was the despair I felt reading descriptions of the desperate fighting—much like the feelings I experienced in college when reading Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago.

I don't know where, but I was flipping channels the other day and caught an episode, devoted to the Battle of Gettysburg, from a series on the American Civil War. The explanation of what happened was fairly straightforward and easily understandable, but it concentrated on events that occurred at the north end of the battlefield, at Culp's Hill, and along Cemetery Ridge.

And then yesterday, as a test of what Amazon Prime video would look like piped to the television I had hooked up as a monitor, I watched the episode devoted to Gettysburg from The Civil War: A Film By Ken Burns.

In between waiting for the video to catch up, it became clear to me that it was almost as if the two shows were talking about two different battles.

Among other things, the Burns work used, as its theme, footage of a 104-year old black woman—who was born in 1885 and was the daughter of a Gettysburg veteran—reciting a poem that was new to me, titled "Dear Madam." The author of the piece is unknown. It goes like this:

I am a soldier and my speech is rough and plain
I'm not much used to writing and I hate to give you pain
But I promised I would do it and he thought it might be so
If it came from one who loved him perhaps it would ease the blow
By this time you must have guessed the truth I fain will hide
And you'll pardon me for rough soldier words while I tell you how he died

It was in the mortal battle, it rained the shot and shell
I was standing close beside him and I saw him when he fell
So I took him in my arms and laid him on the grass
It was going against orders but they thought to let it pass
'Twas a minie ball that struck him, it entered at his side
But we didn't think it fatal till this morning when he died

"Last night I wanted so to live, I seemed so young to go.
This week I passed my birthday. I was just nineteen, you know.
When I thought of all I planned to do it seemed so hard to die
But now I pray to God for grace and all my cares gone by."
And here his voice grew weaker as he partly raised his head
And whispered "Goodbye, mother," and your soldier boy was dead

I carved another headboard as skillful as I could
And if you wish to find it I can tell you where it stood
I send you back his hymn book and the cap he used to wear
The lock I cut the night before of his bright, curly hair
I send you back his Bible. The night before he died
I turned its leaves together and read it by his side
I'll keep the belt he was wearing, he told me so to do
It had a hole upon the side just where the ball went through

So now I've done his bidding, there's nothing more to tell
But I shall always mourn with you the boy we loved so well

The Burns production also devoted time to the 20th Maine Volunteers and their exploits at Little Round Top during the second day of the battle, which is a subject that doesn't lend itself easily to glib summary. Suffice it to say that the 20th Maine ended up charging downhill with fixed bayonets to repel what turned out to be the last Confederate attack on their position at the end of the Union line.

Cheers...