Well, I've been trying to upload some photos on the burial trenches and holes left behind by uprooted trees, but I keep getting security error messages. I guess the board software doesn't trust me.
Anyway, I uploaded some of the pictures to Flickr, so I'll link to them here, and hopefully that works. The pictures aren't the best, but I think they give an idea of what we've been talking about here.
First, here's a picture of the Confederate burial trench in the woods north of Rea Field -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wrap10/37623922125/in/dateposted/
Here's the same trench from a different angle -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wrap10/37623916995/in/photostream/
These were taken in the late afternoon a little over a week ago. If you try to visualize this spot minus the monument, marker, and border around the burial trench, you can see how difficult it would be to even realize it was there. None of the five known burial trenches would really stand out from the surroundings if they weren't already marked. There are several more somewhere in the park, but they were never marked for some reason, and their locations have since been lost.
Here's the small burial trench for the 43rd Illinois, located just down the hill from the above burial trench -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wrap10/37623930515/in/photostream/
It's kind of difficult to make out here, but the actual burial trench is right behind and just to the right of the marker from the camera position, running from bottom-right to top-left. There is also a position marker for this regiment off to the right, just out of camera range. This particular trench is fairly well defined compared to some of the others I've seen in the park, but even so, if it wasn't marked, you could easily mistake it for nothing more than a small depression in the ground.
That's what so often gets me about battlefield parks. If not for the epic battles that took place there, the woods and fields would be no different from countless other woods and fields around the country. I know this isn't exactly breaking news to anyone here. But still. We know them as extraordinary places, yet in a sense they are no different from so many other places that bear no such label. Random chance set them apart.
Anyway, here's a picture of what at first could be mistaken for a burial trench or even wartime-era earthworks, but in reality it's what's left from when a tree fell over -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wrap10/26735017509/in/photostream/
You see these in the woods all over the park, at different angles. Some are better defined than others, probably due to time. This one is not far from the two burial trenches pictured above.
And finally, here's a picture of a recently-fallen tree, showing what it looks like when it's completely uprooted.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wrap10/24638544508/in/photostream/
I forget exactly where in the park this was, but as you can see, it can displace quite a bit of dirt. Over time the wood will of course rot away and the dirt will get weathered down and rounded off, and probably end up looking a lot like the others around the park created in the same way. I couldn't even begin to guess how long it takes. But it probably depends on several factors, including how big the tree was.
In any case, again, not the greatest pictures, but you can get the general idea.
Perry