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The Civil War Battlefield

Originally aired on May 29, 1998 - In part 196 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson says that while Civil War battle sites can be both attractive and fascinating tourist destinations, they should be considered places of great reverence because they show how unstable and unpredictable life can be.

#196 – Death

In the 19th century, death occurred early and often. Limited knowledge of sickness and disease made death a common companion in any society. Today millions of Americans visit Civil War battlefields. Many, if not most of them, see excitement, entertainment, or enthusiasm in the site. Such individuals are either hopelessly informed or callously indifferent.

Battlefields of the 1860’s were ferocious, unfeeling, grotesque places with agony and death present in all their ghastly forms. A Michigan color bearer saw his first battlefield on the Virginia peninsula in 1862. He declared, “the dead are in all possible shapes, some on their backs with their eyes open, others on their faces, others on their side, others in the sitting posture against some brush or tree. One dead Rebel I never shall forget, he was in a ditch leaning on his elbows, the face the very picture of despair and fright. He holds his right hand pointing up, ready as it were, to grasp at something. Now a regiment files by and each one turns his head with loathing at the horrid sight.”

The human carnage of a Civil War battle was such that few soldiers ever noticed the thousands of horses whose corpses so often lay beside the bodies of their masters. They too were pitiful casualties. Death is always impersonal, but at times in the Civil War its web-like hand affected even the most hardened soldiers.

In the 21st Mississippi were two brothers, Judson and Cary Smith. Both had studied at Yale. The two were inseparable. On June 29, 1862, their regiment took part in a sharp little fight at Savage Station, Virginia. It was one of those rear guard actions that had no effect on the course of the war in the Old Dominion or anywhere else. Yet Carey Smith, the youngest brother, fell mortally wounded in the action. A compatriot stated, “Judson Smith went almost deranged. He bore his brother out of the woods and kept the body folded to his bosom. And all through the night his comrades heard Judson Smith kissing Cary and talking to him and then sobbing as if his heart would break.”

The next morning he consented to having his brother’s body sent to Richmond. When the regiment moved his kissed Cary again and again and then left him. Following the column all day long. Allowing no one to comfort him or even speak to him. So that night he laid down alone. Not accepting the sympathy or ministrations of his friends and resumed his solitary march in the morning.

That was the Battle of Malvern Hill day. And when the regiment on its first charge stopped descending that fearful slope of death and turned back Judd Smith did not stop. He went right on, never returned and was never heard from again.

This story has an epilog. The father of the two boys lived alone in Mississippi. When the old man learned of the loss of his two sons he joined the army as a private. A few months later at Iuka, Mississippi, the father did just as his eldest son had done at Malvern Hill, he disappeared into the gun-smoke of battle. The family became extinct.

Civil War battlefields have a certain attraction and fascination. Yet they should be a constant reminder of how unstable and unpredictable life can be. Those sacred grounds especially on Memorial Day weekend stand silently as a testimonial to what has been paid for modern America. A battlefield is no place for gaiety and laughter. It is a place for bowed heads and solemn contemplation. Of the men who demonstrated there that they loved their country more than they loved life itself.