jay gale
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2013
- Location
- kirkland, washington
Those are the two places I have been in my life where I swear I met a spirit. I know people may laugh, but I walked the Wheat field at dark on July 2 2013 and I could literally feel people at my feet, it was the oddest experience of my life, and walking the sunken road is like being put through an emotional ringer, I have never felt such melancholy or sadness
The first time I walked Bloody Lane was in 1991 while I was attending some Civil War seminars out at Gettysburg, and we took a day trip down to Antietam. One of the attendees for these seminars was a darling little elderly lady from Florida who was also president of the local chapter of Daughters of the Confederacy.....she never went anywhere without wearing her grey kepi. Us big strong guys would take turns lending her a strong arm when we walked anywhere and it was my turn when we went to Bloody Lane. She and I had a bad habit of breaking away from the seminar group and walking off on our own so she and I got to know each other pretty well, we had done this exact thing while walking the lane and we were up towards the observation tower and about 100 yards from the group. As we walked I told her that I felt crowded, almost like I had to wedge myself through a large crowd (even though we were all alone). She smiled at me and asked me if I knew what happened there, when I replied in the affirmative, she asked me "well what do you think happens to all the life energy from all those soldiers dying at once?" I just looked at her and she said "all that energy has to go somewhere, it gets absorbed by the ground and the trees and the grass, and you're one of the fortunate ones in that you can feel it"........
to be honest, I didn't feel very fortunate to have that ability, it was pretty unnerving. I did enjoy wandering around with that sweet lady though, she definitely knew her history.
a couple of my photos from a recent trip (2010)