Showing results for "Wilderness"
The Shared Ground of Chancellorsville and the Wilderness
Yesterday, I wrote of the Civil War Trust’s current focus on a tract of land it’s calling the Chancellorsville-Wilderness Crossroads, which saw troop movements during both battles. Separated by a year, the battles shared much of the same geography even though each maelstrom centered in different spots. That brought to mind, in particular, the men […]
Read more...The Chancellorsville-Wilderness Crossroads
Early May is a busy month for Civil War buffs in my neck of the woods. In 1863, the battle of Chancellorsville roared through the eastern half of the Wilderness; in 1864, the battle of the Wilderness ripped through the western half of that same 70-acre second-growth forest. Today, May 4, serves as a transition […]
Read more...“Royal” Green Among Wilderness Brown
While I love hiking battlefields as a way to better understand the history that unfolded there, I also love being out in nature. There’s so much cool stuff to see—something my father opened my eyes to as a young boy and something I’ve enjoyed ever since. It’s always with a sense of awe that I […]
Read more...Review: The Maps of the Wilderness
The Wilderness Battlefield exhibit shelter sits in the middle of Saunders Field like a tiny oasis as the roar of Route 20 zooms by. The Wilderness is no longer wild these days, with vast gated communities hidden behind the trees. What forest still remains is older and less dense than the woods of 1864. These […]
Read more...Ulysses S. Grant and the Wilderness of Pennsylvania (part three)
Part three of a three-part series The first two installments recounted Ulysses S. Grant’s trip to McKean County Pennsylvania on Nov. 16, 1883. The purpose of the trip: to visit the Kinzua Viaduct. Author Chris Mackowski originally hails from McCounty. The train rumbled onward into the Appalachians, fifteen miles to go. “No political matters were […]
Read more...Ulysses S. Grant and the Wilderness of Pennsylvania (part two)
part two of a three-part series Yesterday’s installment set up Ulysses S. Grant’s trip to see the Kinzua Viaduct in McKean County, Pennsylvania—”The Pennsylvania Wilds”—on November 16, 1883, 132 years ago today. Author Chris Mackowski is originally from McKean County, and he discovered this story while researching his book Grant’s Last Battle. The city of […]
Read more...Ulysses S. Grant and the Wilderness of Pennsylvania (part one)
part one in a three-part series Like the crozzled bones of giants, the steel girders of the Kinzua Viaduct lie along the valley floor and up the far hillside. Once, the railroad bridge stretched across the entire gorge—some 2,050 feet—but in 2003, a tornado blew down eleven of its twenty support towers. They still rest […]
Read more...Wilderness and Beauty
I’ve been in the Wilderness a lot lately, shooting photos for an upcoming book I’m working on for the Emerging Civil War Series. It seems like I’ve been writing about the Wilderness for so long that, almost by rote, I refer to it as “the dark, close wood.” “It is a region of gloom and […]
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