Monday; October 16
Growing up when and where I did, I was intrigued by the Civil War. Being raised in the South just 100 years after the end of the War, there was still a connection to what transpired in the 1860s. The older I have gotten, the less “romantic” the War has become to me. Interestingly, a couple of weeks ago when I drove through Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the first time, I experienced something I could have never imagined. Many people have described a hallowed feeling; but what I felt was a hollow feeling. I was overwhelmed by the sense the loss of life as I saw the gravestones. I couldn’t help but be saddened by the loss of hope and innocence of a developing nation as I drove passed the battlefields. On paper, the Union Army may have won the battle, but generations of Americans lost a lot. Families were decimated, churches were divided and communities were destroyed! Over the last few weeks I have thought about what it means to win – and the price of victory. Whether it is a war,