The Way Back: Civil War Then and Now

California to Ohio road trip saga continues.

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“The Battle of Antietam!” I said to my daughter as we cruised through Maryland. “We have to go see it.” My daughter enthusiastically agreed. Or if she wasn’t enthusiastic, she is the kind of person who would want me to think she was. Of all of the ways my life has felt like one mistake after another, I know I did right by that kid.

I felt a little embarrassed being a middle-aged woman geeking out over the Civil War, but that’s just something that happened to me in life. I geek out over things. Wars especially. At the moment, it’s The Civil War and World War II, two of the last Fourth Turnings.

We were in the area because I wanted to see Harper’s Ferry, the site of John Brown’s rebellion before the start of the Civil War. I didn’t realize how lovely the town itself was. Next time, I plan to walk around and spend some time there.

Driving across America, you can’t avoid these wars. They left big footprints on our history and our landscape. There are monuments to generals, those that haven’t been torn down anyway, or you pass through the birthplace of Abe Lincoln or Herbert Hoover. I always try to map out our history as we drive from state to state.

Antietam, known as the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, is a sprawling landscape of vast green fields, cannons, monuments, and memorials. It’s the kind of thing you can really only absorb in real life, not something that would ever captivate someone in the virtual world. I suppose you can find YouTube videos if you’re interested.