There Was No Reveille

[NH Civil War Gal]

There Was No Reveille - Emerging Civil War

Last month at Wreaths Across America in Winchester National Cemetery, a bugler played “Taps” at the conclusion of the ceremony. As the final notes faded, I experienced a strange reaction. I expected to hear reveille next. Years of doing living history at Civil War reenactments in Southern...

emergingcivilwar.com

Deeply moving post -

"Years of doing living history at Civil War reenactments in Southern California had trained my ear to expect a certain pattern to the bugle calls. At those reenactments, when the "shooting" had ended, a bugler played taps, paused a moment, then sounded reveille to signal the "casualties" that the battle was over and they were supposed to get up (or wake up from their battlefield naps). I hadn't thought about that for months, and it wasn't on my mind as I heard Taps at the ceremony, but my inward reaction to the long silence startled me and nearly brought tears.

These dead buried in the national cemetery and across the road in the Confederate burial ground had been gathered from battlefields throughout the Shenandoah Valley. When the shooting ended, the fallen did not get up. The staggering wounded did not make instantaneous recoveries. The blood was not from tubes of Halloween gore.

Instead, they bled out. They gasped their final words. They fell suddenly. They were punctured by bullets, stabbed with bayonets, trampled by horses, racked by disease. Then, their dead bodies were collected and interred hastily. Comrades, civilians, or maybe camp followers did the grisly work of digging the graves or trenches and laying the corpses to rest. Meanwhile, the news of death moved to their homes—definitive accounts or the agonized tale of missing and unidentified. Later, perhaps, their earthly remains found a final resting place in a military cemetery. Maybe their new graves marked with granite, engraved with a name, a state, or only a number."

 

[Bonny Blue Flag]

This writing has a "You were there" feel to it. We will never know the extent of war on so many people, but this comes pretty close. Very poignant. Thank you so much for sharing, NH.

--BBF