Sunday, February 04, 2007

An Obscure Question or Two

I recently received an e-mail from a gracious reader. She mentioned that she had recently visited Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut. While touring the cemetery, a re-enactor mentioned that several of the Civil War veterans were buried standing upright as if at attention. An e-mail to the cemetery elicited a denial that this was the case. However, my question is whether or not this practice ever existed. Research on my part only revealed the occasional practice of vertical burials to save space.

My second question involves a piece of information I heard several years ago during one of my first tours of the Battlefield at Gettysburg. The guide mentioned while we toured Oak Ridge that there had once been an airstrip in the fields just south of Oak Hill. Since that time, I have not found any information concerning a runway at Gettysburg. Of course, the battlefield had once been the site of Camp Colt, a US Army tank training camp during World War I but I have not heard of an airstrip associated with that camp.


One point of interest. The single pine tree (above) along the Emmitsburg Road just west of the Angle at Gettysburg was planted by the soldiers of Camp Colt in honor of their Captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower. They planted the tree with soil from each of the then 48 states.


I would very much appreciate any clarification or information concerning either of the above.

Sincerely,

Randy

Please visit my primary site at www.brotherswar.com

All original material Copyright © 2005-2007. All Rights Reserved

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

´´you cannot do wrong by doing right.´´

There there there there. I hope you recover from your slump about gloryfiying war----find some quotes and disclaimers about the gory and horribleness of war and put them as appropriate markers throughtout your future writings....

Harry Truman said he never gave anyone hell. He just told the truth and some thought that was hell...

Cite the war is hell quote and the one about thank God war is so horrible or we would be in favor of it all the time...

That was then, this is now. There was no way, in that swashbuckling time, for a resolution of slavery and the caste system of the South for a resolution other than war....

and Hitler had to be stopped. Cite Napolean: you can do anything with a bayonet but sit on it...

etc...sponsor an essay contest, even with a pitiful amount of money as a reward: is the sword mightier than the pen....

RESOVLED: MY WRITINGS DO NOT GLORYING OR CONDONE WAR

have the youngsters middle school, high school, and college attack your questions of anguish and sharpen some minds and pens while contemplating your angst...

Read up on the Zulu warrior who after but one kill had to leave the battle to go purify himself...

Rest up and then come back into the fight to have history teach us now and in the future to use words first and only as a last resort resort to smart bombs.....

How keep us from going to sleep as at Pearl Harbor and with the the twin WTC towers?

Philip Roth penned words can be either grenades and bombs or gifts and treasures.....

Keep up the good work once you rest up and stop hand wringing and come back into the dusty fight of history and what is true and what is not....the first casulaty of war is truth and then the Plan and then human sensitivity.....indeed, we are Killer Angels.....

Anonymous said...

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