WARREN BEATH

Ball’s Bluff was special. We had trouble finding this battlefield, which was south of Leesburg. Bieber was suffering from paint inhalation and slept in the car, and I took off alone with a guide map– a dangerous proposition. I did have a compass, but lost the map twice. There was a little battlefield cemetery, and the woods were quiet. I had to double back once when I became unsure of the trail, and eventually I lost the map. But I found the bluff– and the Potomac River– and walked its six hundred yards. It was quiet except for the birds, and it was great to be alone in the woods. I had a good experience of the place.

The morning of the fifteenth we went to Harpers Ferry. I wanted to climb Maryland Heights where there were old Union fortifications in very good shape, but it wasn’t to be. We went into the museums, and saw John Brown’s fort and the foundations of the armory and arsenal. We walked Virginius Island. Jackson’s headquarters was a bed and breakfast on Bolivar Heights and we also visited some of the battlefield. It was a great place.

 We went to Sharpsburg on the 14th, and then to the Antietam Battlefield. It was my favorite. Walking to Dunkard’s Church, exploring the West Woods– and the Cornfield. We walked to the Mumma House and the little family cemetery, and then across a field to the Sunken Road where so many soldiers died. Alone I took a little road off to the Roulette Farm, and I would stop in the fields and just feel everything that had happened on the ground. On the way back I was alone on the Sunken Road, no one in sight.

Then we took the car tour with the Ranger, and he really made it come alive. We ended up at Burnside Bridge.

Then, we took the Harper’s Ferry Road, making a detour to see where John Brown had planned the raid.

East Cemetery Hill

We arrived in Gettysburg on the 12th. Parking by the visitor center, we walked Cemetery Ridge to Steinwahr and checked into the motel. We visited the gatehouse on Cemetery Hill, and then walked the Union line all the way to the bottom of Little Round Top. I saw the Bloody Angle and the copse of tress that was the High Water Mark of the Confederacy.

That night we drove to the base of Little Round Top and climbed it; I explored a path all the way back to the monument to Maine and Joshua Chamberlin. We also visited Devil’s Den.

The next day, I got up early and walked to Steven’s Knoll next to Cemetery Hill. I startled some deer, and then I found the grave of Jenny Wade in the Evergreen Cemetery– the only civilian victim of the Battle of Gettysburg, killed when a musket ball went through a wall and killed her in the kitchen.

We got the driving tour book and disks from the visitor center, and spent most of the day on that. It took us north and west of town, to the site of the first day’s fighting, and the scene of the death of General Reynolds. The Wheatfield, The Peach Orchard– the site of Picket’s wounding, with a cannonball hole still in the face of the barn.

And that night, we went to the scene of Pickett’s Charge as darkness fell. Ghosthunters stopped and took flash pictures. I filmed the silhouettes of the confederate monuments against the darkening sky.