JPinta
Private
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2013
- Location
- Columbus, OH
I recently visited the Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania and was fortunate enough to find myself the only person there for a solid window of about 15 or 20 minutes (it was around 10:00am). Just me, the flowers & grasses, and the chorus of buzzing insects and chirping birds. What an experience. It was one of the most poignant moments I have felt on a battlefield, east or west, north or south. Much of this had to do of course with me being fortunate enough to be alone with the landscape and to peacefully enjoy what is paradoxically one of the most tranquil places I have ever been. It was surreal. With the exception of the few monuments, signs and two small paths, there is barely anything in the way of 20th/21st century intrusions in the area, and it feels very much the way you might imagine it did 150 years ago.
I thought I might share my favorite photograph I got from the visit, a panorama with the Confederate trenches manned by Rodes’ division to the right and the field over which the Federals in Wright’s VI Corps advanced to strike the western leg of the Mule Shoe on the morning of May 12 to the left.
As “hollowed” as any ground that ever existed on the continent in my opinion.
I thought I might share my favorite photograph I got from the visit, a panorama with the Confederate trenches manned by Rodes’ division to the right and the field over which the Federals in Wright’s VI Corps advanced to strike the western leg of the Mule Shoe on the morning of May 12 to the left.
As “hollowed” as any ground that ever existed on the continent in my opinion.