sunday status

I can't believe this thing is creeping up on me so quickly! I have to download maps and print directions, and I have to start coming up with a packing list. And I've barely made it halfway through The Whirlwind of War, because stupid work keeps me so damn busy this month, the bastards.

But I'm determined to make it to EMS or REI sometime this week for my lantern. And this weekend, I received two gifts to help me on my way. Poppy, of course, bought me some scary pepper spray covered in instructions and warning notices, and while it scares me to death to carry a such a thing on my person, I'll do it for safety and I'll do it for Poppy too. And then last night a very thoughtful friend gave me some waterproof matches he'd picked up for me. I can't tell you how tickled I was to receive them. (Thanks.)

Now off to work so I can go home and read the rest of the day away. It's amazing what personal feelings I'm developing for old dead men like U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. I love when I feel an affection for an historical figure, because they were all just people, afterall, not myths or legends. They didn't have scripts to follow and they didn't know how everything would come out in the end. They were just people doing the things they knew they ought to do, sometimes getting distressed and sometimes making mistakes, and they loved their wives and they fought among themselves and sometimes they lost their tempers and sometimes they cried and sometimes they were afraid, both of what the world put before them, and of what they found inside themselves. And I love them for it. I really, really do.

moon phases

Last night I was sitting in the backyard, late, and I noticed a strange light falling across my rose bush. I stood and looked over the garden wall to see where it was coming from, and saw it was the moon, very big, hanging low over McKean Street, just beginning to wane.

I'm leaving a month from today, which is thirty-one days. This means I'll be traveling under a waning moon. It will be bright at first, and it will pass the half-moon mark while I'm still in the South. This is good. Better than leaving under a half-moon, leaving the sky dark by the time I hit the Great Smoky Mountains. My first hike-in night, alone in the woods without a car to hide in or people camping near enough to see, will be lit by a three-quarter moon. I'm camping on a stream that night, which means it's possible there won't be full tree coverage and I'll have some natural light to keep me company. If I'm really lucky, some of that moonlight will reflect off the water too.

That's the night I'm afraid of. That's the night that will determine what I've got holding on to me from the inside. I'm afraid of weather and wildlife, but more than that, I'm afraid of being afraid. But I know that it's not dislocating fear that makes a person brave; it's facing fear and living through it. I feel pretty confident. Afterall this is what I want. Time alone with no one to talk to, no one asking me to make a decision, or to account for myself. Just the night air, and the quiet. And if I can find that, and if I can enjoy it, everything else will be pie.

military history

I know, as soon as I said I was going to post more often, I hit a 60-odd hour workweek and couldn't find the time to read, much less post. Hopefully this week will calm down a little. Afterall, it's a month tomorrow that I push off.

Before I started planning this trip, most of what I knew of the war was political. I knew Lincoln and his administration, I knew the series of failed Congressional compromises and the shifting of the major parties that led to secession and war. I knew the political strategies Lincoln employed in conducting the war. And I knew some of the economic and international considerations both the Union government and that of the Confederacy had to take into account.

And to be sure, I knew Grant, McClellan, Sherman and Lee and Jackson. But I didn't know what they did. And though I knew it was considered the first modern war due to its timing at the birth of the Industrial Revolution, I didn't know what that meant. Now, through Ken Burns and Shelby Foote and Stephen Oates, I'm starting to understand the military operations of the war, the way it was conducted, the maneuvers, and the people who fought it.

Ever since college I've studied American history from Washington and the homefront. I've been intrigued by war, but only by the personal narrative of the grunt because it's social and cultural history that I fall for, which is afterall only the collective personal history of the everyman. I follow the most basic movements in Washington insofar as they have effect on the average American's life. And I follow war because it moves people and it changes the way people live and the things they live for. Recently I decided that studying the history of American wars from a military standpoint might be interesting and provide new perspective. I decided to start with this war, the Civil War, because it's the war I know best to begin. And it is interesting, afterall. It's terrifying and it's fascinating and although it's very technical, it's also much more personal than I'd imagined it would be. To understand a man's battle strategy is to understand his nature. These commanders are a study in everything that is human about a human being, everything base and everything academic. Robert E. Lee, for example, grieved every death in his army but never ceased to throw more divisions into the front, even as the odds were most often against him. If that doesn't encompass the full breadth of human capability, instinct, emotion, and intellect all working together, then I don't know what does.

kinship of war

Big sap that I am, I cry at everything, romantic comedies, old sitcom reruns, the newspaper, you name it. But in eight hours of Ken Burns, I didn't shed a single tear. Not even when Sam Waterston read the Gettysburg Address, which by all rights should have put me over the edge. And then in the final hour, I got overwhelmed. It seems when William Tecumseh Sherman died, in the winter of 1891, General Joseph E. Johnston, against whom Sherman had fought his way through the South, was a pallbearer in his funeral. It caught me off-guard how immediately I got choked up at that fact. I wonder how the souls of men become entwined when, without knowing each other, they fight each other in battle, track each other and try to anticipate the other's next movement. It must be a bond like no other, terrifying that war could make men know their opponents so intimately that they would carry each other into death, even years after peace has broken.

the whirlwind of war and other details

I've started reading The Whirlwind of War. It's oddly compelling for a historic record, although I supposed it might fall more under the category of fictionalized history than nonfiction. Stephen B. Oates writes the war from Sumter to Appomattox using nine first person narrators, including Lincoln, Lee, Sherman and other key players. He uses as many of their own words as possible, drawing from primary and secondary sources, in order to make his characterizations as authentic as possible. I finished the first fifty or so pages in the park this morning, and I'm surprised to report that it's a page turner, almost as much so as Gore Vidal's Lincoln.

In other news, I think I've fixed the settings so you can comment without signing up for a Google account. And despite musings to the contrary, I swear to you I will not fall in love with a reenactor on this trip, nor will the trip cause me to become one (thank you very much, Tom and Jack). And I'll try to post more often so I will never again have to hear the words "your blog is boring."

chickamauga

My ticket for the Battle of Chickamauga arrived today. I tried to order it online, but the server didn't seem secure, so I called. The ticket that came in the mail today was accompanied by a receipt that had been printed out from their website. This means they fed my credit card number into the internet despite my hesitancy to do so. Drat the modern age.

The other day I watched the Ken Burns' episode about the Battle of Chickamauga. It was a Southern victory, avenged by the Union at Chattanooga a few days later. It was after the tide of the war turned, and a minor battle at best, but still, I'm excited to see it. I want to hear the rebel yell. Shelby Foote reports that historians don't know to this day exactly what the rebel yell actually sounded like, but I'm sure some of those Southern reenactors must have some reckoning. All contemporary accounts report it curdled the blood and stiffened the spine and I wonder whether outside the terror of the real Civil War, if that could be anywhere near possible.

on solitude and nature

I just posted this on my other blog, but I think it's worth posting here too. This trip is about learning more about the Civil War and about exploring a small piece of the American South, but it's about something else too. I think these words, written by an Arctic explorer named Børge Ousland, say it best. I've edited it down a bit for the sake of length.

I often use nature as a form of meditation; or in other words, to set the counter back to zero in order to get more vitality and energy.

Nature gives me a sanctuary where I can collect my thoughts.

Jan Frode expresses in words how important outdoor life and physical activity is for mental health, especially for people struggling to overcome fear or depression.

I do not venture outdoors to find solutions to problems or to mull over things. On the contrary, that would be the wrong focus. When the objective of the trip is relaxation, inner peace and balance, the secret is to think about as little as possible. Instead I will concentrate on what I experience around me such as colors, forms, smells, sounds and animal life. I often walk away from the trail, use all my senses and absorb what I am experiencing. I like to call it a “fill up.”

...It is common sense not to go alone on treks in the mountains. This is understandable since there would not be anyone there to help if an accident should happen. However, to place yourself in a vulnerable position where everything depends on you and your own choices can also be valuable. You can get a better dialog with nature when nobody else is there and therefore also a better dialog with yourself.

...Prepare yourself, buy suitable maps, make a plan and then follow it. Visit new places and gradually increase the distance covered for each trip. Don’t think too far ahead in time. Make short-term goals, concentrate on simple things at start and take it from there. Perhaps you should take a friend with you, but don’t be afraid to go alone. Ghosts are in the city, not in nature.

...The strong sides of a person are cultivated in our society and it is easy to forget that humans have both strong and weak sides. This is what makes us whole humans and the two sides should be in balance and harmony with each other. Here is where nature can be of help. I am quite certain that if mental health treatments in this country consisted of more hikes, more wood chopping and less popping of pills, many patients would often have different and much better days.

Greetings from Børge.

status

I ordered my tent this morning. I chose the Marmot Limelight 2P. It's lightweight and packs small, 32 square foot floor area, bright orange, plenty of ventilation, and has a decent sized vestibule. It comes with the footprint and gearloft included, so that's a pretty good deal. I also ordered a small camp pillow and a travel towel, and on an impulse I bought a red hoodie that was on sale for ten bucks.

I also called in and ordered my two-day pass for the Battle of Chickamauga this morning. So that's that.

All I need now is a car.