War Between the States in South Carolina Prelude
When you know and feel the old ones as they move about you... then you have got it.
There are so many places, I have seen that just overwhelm me. The Peach Orchard at Shiloh known as the place were it "snowed blood." Through the wheat field at Gettysburg with the Fifteenth South Carolina. Down the valley with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John... and their old friend Stonewall... at Chancellorsville with Old Blue Light as they march round Hooker in a move that is so audacious, it is still looked upon as unbelievable... Can you see him sitting there on Little Sorrel, fire flashing through his eyes as Orr's Rifles go by and then the Stonewall Brigade itself, one of men serving there had known Old Jack as a student and had once challenged him to a duel... lo he watches and studied them and there are so many he had taught at VMI, so many he knows, passing by him on the way to the greatest victory he will never know that he turns in the saddle and announces for all to hear, "The Institute will be heard from today."... and indeed it was, Oh how it was, and then off into history, none knowing it will be his last day of command.
Or maybe in the railroad cut at Second Manassas where the boys from Louisiana and South Carolina held the line using the only ammunition they had left... rocks... with Captain McKittrick of the Sixteenth at Atlanta who writes a last letter to his wife and children... through the locust thicket at Franklin with Capers and the Gist Brigade, it is endless... the silence of the dead? I think not ! They scream to me across the ages... and most folks are totally deaf. Who were these men that thought so little of their life and so much of their states... and how could they do it with no guns, no powder, no food, no clothes and no hope for five years.... and then with all lost, move into the future knowing that the lucky ones were dead... the sad ones had lived to go home.
Steve Batson
Webmistress' notes: Steve has proven to be a dear friend and a great man in my eyes. He has guided me and taught me, been my bouncing board for new ideas, I owe him dearly for this and so do all those that cross these pages. To my genealogist friends, I URGE you to study the history and not just write the names in your data bases. If the above doesn't inspire you to do this, then I don't know what would..... Traci Parsons-Holder
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