Gettysburg

Gettysburg was the beginning and the end of a number of things. For example, I was looking forward to beginning school again in February, and ending my job at Wal Mart. I was also looking forward to beginning my life as an official adult, with my 21st birthday coming in January.

Our unit had been given a unique honor of being invited to spend a weekend camping near the Pennsylvania Monument in Gettysburg National Park. While there we would offer a living history camp site for the public to tour, photo opportunities and would practice marching and firing drills in the field on the other side of the road.

I believe we were one of four different groups there that weekend, scattered around the park.

Now this would be the first time that I had ever been to Gettysburg. I had watched the movie once, maybe, but I'd never been there. (I had also never actually seen a reenactment, outside of the movie Gettysburg.)

In fact the movie had been my only real exposure to the civil war while I was in grade school. In high school I had done an advanced history project on female soldiers in the civil war, but the education I gained in my first year of reenacting trumped all that. The war between the states is a topic too vast to learn in a single lesson, or a single chapter. All wars are that way. It's foolish for a grade school teacher to stand before a classroom of students, present a well worn chapter on the Civil War or the Vietnam conflict or what have you and then call it done. It isn't over...not for the men that fought, nor for their descendants, because it happened...it is still alive because there are memories of these men (and women) still alive in their descendants. If that idea could be infused into the history teachers of today there would be far less burn out I suspect.

Either way, through the eyes and stories of the reenactors around me, I was starting to grasp just what it meant to be a living historian and have a better understanding of the war I presumed to represent. On our way to Gettysburg, crammed into a five person vehicle and traveling most of the night and well into the wee hours of the morning, instead of watching the movie itself we watched Scooby Doo and other children's videos. Primarily because our driver had chosen to take his young son along with him to enjoy the experience of his first reenactment.

We headed down Cashtown Road, which wound sharply through the mountains and it seemed that every ten minutes we would pass a sign that promised, Gettysburg 15 miles. Yet we never drew any closer to Gettysburg. We passed various signs for small businesses, including some establishments that promised naked women from the waist up. We were giddy, and tired, yes, and determined which dead Generals and Colonels were the reason for the erection of the various signs. Colonel McDonald, General King, Etc.

"This sign has been erected to mark the spot where General King was shat and killed on Jew-lie the third, 1863."

It took a few minutes to realize that the past tense of 'shoot' was not 'shat'.

We pulled into the inn where several of the other boys in the unit had already secured a room and piled out of the truck. There were two beds, but plenty of floor space, and I chose to bunk down on the latter. And of course my relationship joined me. It had become common place then for us to sleep in proximity of one another. I thought I was in love and I enjoyed the feeling of a man near me, the fluttering in my stomach knowing someone thought I was a step above repulsive.

The next morning we piled into our cars and headed out to the battlefield. We toured a little first, and at my behest we went to the top of Little Round Top and found the spot where the 20th Maine stood. We crawled around Devil's Den and went a few other places that I knew nothing about because I hadn't seen them in the movie and hadn't learned much beyond it about the battle of Gettysburg. Towards late afternoon we parked near the Pennsylvania monument; a four square pillar of a building with a rotunda at the top; and started to unload. We set up our tents in a sort of Chevron pattern opening toward the tree line and pointing toward the road.

There was a brick and stone out house near the road that was to be our toilette and we had water from various sources. Inside the tent we would share a few blankets, straw and the company of at least one other soldier. Despite the chill of September it was bound to be a warm night.

Some would swear I got drunk that night. Some would swear that I was a lush and was begging to have my cup filled, and filled again. Others would swear that I wouldn't have made it to my blankets if it hadn't been for a helpful soldier guiding me to the restroom and back. Some even swore that I danced about the flag poles.

None of that was true. But it didn't stop the men from gleefully spinning stories. I had some to drink, yes, and I swear that someone continued to fill my glass every time I looked away such that I couldn't empty it and call it a night. At the time I had blue tinware, provided by my father. Neither of us knew any better and I was working very hard to black it up. At Jackson it had been squished, inadvertently, by the wheels of a truck driven by a member of our unit; and since then chips of enamel had been coming off and floating into anything I drank. From coffee to beverage.

By the time I did get up I didn't realize how much I had had, nor how much it affected me. There were some blank moments between rising, getting to the toilet and getting into bed but...I was very warm that night. The next morning I was feeling a little sick. A little sorry. I rose and stepped out of the tent and headed for the little stone building and saw the loveliest rainbow. Arching up over the stone building and into the russet and gray sky.

We marched all over creation at that event. We marched across the road three or four times a day to show off for the tour buses full of spectators. We marched down to Armistead's marker and the wall to take pictures, including a very good unit picture. We marched at night out to Devil's Den to climb around the boulders and enjoy the silence of the park. Some of my fellow soldiers felt the need to bring cameras with them and spent hours snapping pictures of 'orbs'. Some claimed that they had started down the road near camp and had seen a soldier walking towards them and swore that it was a confederate picket. One photo was taken at Devil's Den, and shows just in the corner what might be the silhouette of a man in uniform. What I've never said to the photo taker or the others present when the photo was taken is that I'm fairly certain that the 'ghost' is actually me. It's far more fun to let them think they've a real spook on film.

We even speculated that the trenches buried under ground cover and dead fall in the woods behind our camp were once dug by soldiers, preparing for the battle to reach them if the lines broke.

This past fall I went on an early morning walk through the battle field and ended up at the Pennsylvania monument just as morning broke. I climbed to the top, exited the rotunda and while I was enjoying the breeze I tried to find the spot that I had taken a photo from five years prior. I circled the rotunda twice before I realized that I wasn't going to find it because all of the trees had been cut down by the park service in the interest of returning the park to the way it appeared in 1863. The green yard where we had camped was now indistinguishable from the rest of the area.

After our demonstration days were over our unit packed up, headed for the hotels for a final night in town before we would start the pilgrimage back. Most had come out in a large van and already there were grumblings about who would be driving. Some of the older members were fast losing their welcome, and more than a few fits had been thrown in camp. I was glad to be traveling back with a smaller group.

My relationship and I, and the others that we had joined our first night in Gettysburg, were planning to group together and spend the night in the General Lee suite in the Cashtown Inn. Above the museum is a series of rooms connected together, with (I believe) only one bath. Each room is well decorated and there is a common room with couches and fire place and a large TV. I made use of the bath first thing, enjoying the Jacuzzi and pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt. When I exited most of the rest of the group were gone somewhere and it was just my relationship and I.

I sat down and he started to massage my feet which was strange, and yet I thought...it was a good sign right? He wants to touch me...I can't be as repulsive as I've always believed myself to be.

Then we were sitting together and I was leaning against him and he turned to me. And I could feel him watching me so I turned to him. And then he kissed me. And I felt my heart leap into my head, clang around my skull and then try to go back down my throat, and get stuck. I told him it wasn't right. And he said he was sorry. But he had to do that. He had to see what it was like. And I thought, how could it be any different than the most frightening thing I'd ever done?

That evening we were once more on the floor together and I was cold because we only had the one comforter and I wanted my blanket. But my blanket was in the car. And I also wanted out. I wanted away from what was fast becoming something very very wrong. For an hour, in the darkness, I thought about how wrong it was. And felt sick to my stomach, and wanted to rave and rant and hate. And I really wanted my blanket, the vestige of the innocence that had been torn from me with just a kiss.

Finally I snuck out, got the keys to the truck and grabbed my blanket, taking my time getting back into the hotel room. I lay curled in my blankets, not sleeping until morning. As soon as the sun was up I left and sat outside on the steps thinking and crying. Feeling like I'd spent the night with a hundred different men, but knowing it'd only been with one. And nothing had happened between us yet I still felt spoiled and dirty.

I sat and I recited a hateful, hurting speech over and over in my head so that by the time he finally came out to see where I was, my speech was so refined and rehearsed it barely made sense. I told him I didn't want to be his girlfriend on the side. That I wouldn't be the reason for breaking up a family and what was he thinking acting that way toward me? Where did he think it was going to go? I told him that he should think of me as his daughter, and what would it be like if his daughter were faced with the decision he was putting on me? I told him that he had made a decision before God to be faithful to his wife and he wasn't doing that whenever we went to reenactments. I told him that it was my fault. For not putting a stop to it before then. For not telling him that I wasn't going to be his 'special friend' any time his wife wasn't around.

When I had talked myself out he said some things to me that I didn't want to hear. Already I had heard rumors floating around the unit about what was going on between us and I had gotten the idea finally that some of the arguments in camp had to do with my relationship and I. He promised me that it wasn't the way I thought it was. That I wasn't the girlfriend on the sly. After so much listening I decided I had enough and I told him I was going for a walk.

More than once, in the past, I got into heap loads of trouble for taking off on walks without telling someone. Going deep into the woods where I knew I could get back if I had to, but nobody else did and they thought for sure I'd be lost for all time. This time I didn't care. I was nearly 21, and obviously capable of making already gargantuan adult mistakes.

I kept my blanket around my shoulders and stomped down the stairs and across the parking lot, down a slight decline across the railroad tracks then up into the woods. I followed deer trail after deer trail praying and crying and begging for forgiveness and trying to figure out how deeply I'd dug the hole I was in.

I wouldn't say that I found peace. I still liked him. For all the hatred I had for the situation I still liked...loved the man. And that in itself was wrong. And I knew until that love was gone, I would be in the wrong.

I did cry all the tears I had left and at just the right moment I saw someone coming across the parking lot and onto the tracks with two cups of coffee in his hands.

He told me that he wasn't going to treat me like his daughter. I wasn't a daughter to him. He said, he felt more like a brother. He said that I was right. That what he had done the night before was wrong. He said he would tell his wife about what we had done that past year; which wasn't more than courting really; but it was bad enough. He told me he wasn't worried about what the rumor mill had to say about us, and that I shouldn't care a lick either. He told me that he cared for me, a lot.

The drive home was strange, and good, and I felt so unstable and awkward. I was glad when I was home. Glad to get on to simply working, and not thinking, and knowing that I wouldn't have to communicate with him again until the company meeting in the spring.

I hoped I wouldn't miss him but I did.

I hoped he wouldn't call, but he did.

I hoped I wouldn't feel the need to tell anyone about him, lying left and right, but I did.

Most of the rest of those first years is a blur of events. Meetings with my relationship that had nothing to do with reenactments and everything to do with my loneliness. Phone calls while he was on business trips with semi-serious offers to have me fly to where he was and spend the weekends with him.

At first I said no kissing. Then I told him more about why I was so afraid. Then he said that he was meant to be the interim. That he would be there to help me not be afraid of intimacy until my future someone came along. Then I made him promise to let the next step be my decision.

And it made me sick, and I hated missing him. But I still loved him. And I waited and waited to not love him anymore. And I lied to my family and friends and total strangers until I had created several different lives, separate from my own that would allow for my memories of him. Some of those memories weren't memories at all but more lies.

I left my first unit after about four years. After I saw that it was starting to fall apart, and after a brief weekend as acting First Sergeant ended badly. The younger men in the unit supported the man, my age, that had been elected second Sergeant. I never asked to be promoted. I had been in anticipation of future command changes, and I wanted nothing of it. Another unit was waiting to welcome me. They were based out of a city hours closer to my own, their events were closer and there were no relationships built on rickety scaffolding of falsehoods waiting for me either.

I left my first unit, feeling guilty; watching from a far as more than just the unit started to fall apart. But my relationship continued to cling to me. I would see him at some of our joint events and I would be repulsed at first at his behavior. And realize how much I had put up with to be with him. Then he would start to sink into me and I would be back to my old ways. And hating myself for it.

When I made my pilgrimage this past fall I lit a small votive candle at the Pennsylvania monument and watched it burn for a moment or so.

I thought to myself, "This is the end of that old relationship, the one that began here. The one that has been wiped from the field by the park service, and been wiped from my life by my own choices."

I lit another candle at The Angle. The beginning, I thought. I hoped.

Recently I met my relationship unexpectedly. I had come to this very large event with my current unit and he had fallen in with the Yankees. I was leaving for camp and he recognized me and shouted my name.

When I first recognized who he was I was surprised, and pleased, then immediately filled with dread. Because I knew he didn't get it yet. He didn't yet understand that I needed him to leave me be. Up to that point I had been too much of a coward to tell him that outright. To tell him that even friendship wouldn't work between us because he was still in love with me. Because he still thought we were soul mates.  Because any laugh or smile or tiny fraction of approval from me was an encouragement to him. I couldn't be merely friends with him because he wanted more.

We talked and I stalled, wanting to return to camp, wanting to be done with the day. I was tired and just recovering from moderate dehydration. There were a myriad of discomforts at camp as well but I'd rather have them than my old relationship. He decided he wanted to visit old friends in Confederate camp and we managed to hitch a ride together. And I felt myself slipping into being nice because I was in the presence of others that didn't know any better.

We got back to camp and while he made nice with mutual friends I slipped to my tent, grabbed my spare shirt and prepared to duck under the canvas to change. He wouldn't let me go. I said I had to check for ticks and such and finally managed to evade him and do just that; with out his help. When I got back he had caught on to my sour mood and...I'm not quite sure what he thought he had in mind.

He tried to sandwich me with his arms, then tried to convince another of my comrades to join him. That fellow wisely stayed away. I was telling my relationship to stop. No, I said. Stop it, I said. Leave me alone, I said. And finally, when he just wouldn't catch on I punched him.

I was close to him, and I thought, this is the only way to get the idea across. So I punched him. And he looked at me shocked. And I walked away.

He followed me and tried to ask why I had done it.

"You wouldn't stop. I asked you stop," I said.

He dogged my steps and said, "You didn't have to punch me."

"Yes, I did." I said. "You deserved it."

He tried to pout. He tried to get me to tell him it was all a joke. To laugh and shrug it off and make nice. But I didn't. I wouldn't. And I left him standing there pouting.

I felt guilty about it. I felt remorse at losing what might have been a friendship after all. I felt that I made him lose face before his former friends, and felt that I had lost face too perhaps...but I had finally drawn a line. I had protected myself in a way that I hadn't been able to in the past and for once it felt good.

And I kept thinking back to Gettysburg, and lighting that candle, and about how it was finally over. I had finally killed off whatever kept me in chains...chains disguised as love. I had decided what was best for me and acted on it, and done so with a pure, and hopefully chaste heart.

Perhaps, to you reader, it sounds like a lot of sappy, holistic, self-righteous nonsense. You may think so if you choose. But as I sit and write I have no regrets.