Published: May 03, 2008 06:29 pm         

Who knows what part of us we leave behind?

The story is that Thomas Jackson, my cousin from Virginia, fell under the enchantment of a 5-year-old girl who sang to him.

Jackson — who had a small daughter of his own — drank lemonade with her, carried her around on his shoulder, brought her presents and got down in the grass with her to roll around and play like they were two puppies.

Onlookers were dumbfounded. This was “Stonewall” Jackson, the fierce, God-fearing Confederate general who thought the best thing to do with Yankees was kill them.

The child took sick. When Jackson was told she had died, he walked away from the others and began to sob.

“Is the general crying for that little girl?” asked one of his officers.

“No,” said another, “he’s crying for all of them.”

——————

At Gettysburg, we kept a lookout for active-duty troops and veterans so we could thank them for their service. It’s our way, and we do it wherever we go.

When I gave a Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 172 “Welcome Home” coin to a man in a “Vietnam Veteran” hat, he stared at it as if it were a 50-dollar gold piece. (It’s a common reaction.) Eyes brimming, he said, “I will treasure this.” That told me all I needed to know about what greeted him when he came home, and this encounter by itself would have made my trip worthwhile.

Mark and Gary said other old soldiers who walked Gettysburg’s battlefields never received the appreciation they deserved. When night fell, we went looking for them.

I knew we were going to do this and wondered how I would react because my family has a tradition of experiences that defy most people’s rational explanations. It’s not something to be played with, but must be treated with respect and cold sobriety, the same as one would handle a firearm.

Gary once watched as something wrestled Mark to the ground and pinned him there, unable to breathe, when he became too insistent about making contact. I also know — and remember very well — what it’s like to be assaulted by someone you can’t see.

Spangler’s Spring had been a source of water for both armies and the place where soldiers traded tobacco and coffee under an undeclared truce.

Mark and Gary took their digital flash camera into the woods, and I sat on a big rock, to wait and see what I would see. I often do this, wherever I might be, and am frequently rewarded for it.

Tourists began to arrive, slamming car doors, flashing “ghost detectors” and laughing and carrying on like it was a bloody picnic. Suddenly, I was filled with anger and an urge to scream, “Damn you! Have you no respect?” Mark said his wife reacts the same way to such behavior.

It grew quiet, and I began to contemplate what in the darkness looked like an arched gateway at the edge of the woods. It beckoned me, as the cliché goes. I couldn’t go through the gate because a fallen tree blocked the opening, so I began to talk.

My recollection is that I first apologized for the tourists and their ruckus and disrespect.

Then I said it wasn’t the will of the Almighty that our country be divided. We needed each other. Divided, America could never have become what it is today ... for all of its flaws, still the world’s best hope ... and could never achieve what it has the potential to achieve.

The agonizing four years of Civil War is what began the process by which the states and their people became united. We’re still West Virginians, Marylanders, Pennsylvanians, Texans and Virginians, but now we are first and foremost Americans.

(Understand that before the war, there was nothing like our modern sense of national identity. The states were in large part a collection of former imperial colonies that looked out for their own interests and worked together only when it suited them. Many people, particularly in the South, despised the idea of a central government that told them and their states what they could and could not do.)

You know how folks sometimes get the sensation of being watched? I had the feeling of being listened to, and the longer I was there, the stronger it became. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to do what I was doing.

I said that people from all over the world visit Gettysburg because it was the scene of an event that altered the course of history. Soldiers from other free nations come to learn from the battle and develop skills they will need to preserve their own freedom — a freedom Americans probably helped them achieve.

Regardless of the colors they followed, the men who came to Gettysburg were Americans. Like millions of others who are alive today, I can say that some of my kinfolk served the Confederacy while others served the Union. The blood spilled at Gettysburg was the blood of family.

The last thing I said was what I always say: Thank you for your service. May God bless you. Welcome Home.

Gary and Mark emerged from the woods, and we walked to a road where I had seen little green lights dancing around. As we climbed a dirt bank that was maybe three feet high, one foot slipped and I started to go down — but just before going face-first into the dirt, I stopped falling. I teetered there for a moment, probably looking like a ski jumper hanging out over his skis, then straightened up as easily as I would get out of a chair.

While we were peering into a patch of woods in search of a light we’d seen, a shadow came suddenly up the road and passed behind me. I turned quickly, but no one was there.

My friends returned to the field looking for a rock formation that seemed to have vanished, and I stood alone for a few seconds. No longer distracted, I felt surrounded by a distinct and utterly calming sensation of warmth.

They’re all around me, I thought. I have an escort. They took Mark down, but they kept me from falling.

I went to follow Mark and Gary through the field, where they said they passed through one cold spot after another. The temperature suddenly drops sharply, but it’s an unnatural cold because you can’t feel it on your arms or face — only on your torso. I had experienced the same thing the night before at the Triangular Field, but at Spangler’s Spring I felt only comfortable and safe.

As we approached the car on our way out, I said, “Thank you. I’ll be all right, now.” The warmth faded, and I began to feel the chill of the night air. My escorts had gone back to wherever they came from.

Mark has downloaded his pictures into a computer and viewed them on a big screen. “We’ve never gotten anything that showed this much activity,” he said. “There are orbs (glowing balls of energy) and shadows, and you can see a head and shoulders on one of them. That road we were on is covered with orbs. We were surrounded by them.”

Like I said ... .

I also took photos, including two shots of a lady who sat at the Pennsylvania monument, playing a guitar and singing ballads Gettysburg’s troops would have recognized.

One picture shows nothing out of the ordinary, but in another taken a few seconds later she is sitting beneath a spreading cloud that seems to be billowing out of the monument itself. You can see through it, it contains an inner structure of its own, and judging from its color it is illuminated by the setting sun. I’ve done photography for more than 40 years and seen all sorts of lens flares and flaws in development, but never anything like this.

I showed it to Gary and asked, “If Mark had taken a picture of me on the road, what do you think it would have showed?” He looked at me and silently shook his head. We’ll have to go back and find out.

What happened to us at Gettysburg? I don’t know, but something did. The things I understand are far outnumbered by the things I cannot explain.

Even though neither one died there, apparitions of both Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee have been seen at Gettysburg. Who knows what part of us we leave behind, or where we leave it? If some fiber of my spirit remained with my brothers at Spangler’s Spring, that would please me.

Anything might be possible in this fantastic universe of ours. To insist otherwise is to put limits on God, and I refuse to do that.

Those who walk the fields and woods of Gettysburg must somehow serve His purpose, and it was His presence I felt the strongest of all. That, plus a sense of absolute peace and reconciliation like I have experienced nowhere else.

——————

I asked the clerk at Regimental Headquarters (the store where Gary and Mark buy their re-enactors’ uniforms and equipment) to sell me a cap like the one my cousin Stonewall wore.

“You’re holding it,” he said, a blue forage cap that was a holdover from Jackson’s days as an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute.

It would seem that my maternal cousin Thomas Jackson of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and my paternal cousin Thomas Goldsworthy of the 12th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Union Army wore the same hat. I actually wasn’t surprised; the older I get, the less I believe in coincidence.

Of all that I took away from Gettysburg, this thought is above everything else:

An American serviceman who stands ready to defend his home, his people and their freedom, and who fights, suffers and possibly dies for them, is an American serviceman. Period.

Where, when, why or how he serves doesn’t matter, nor does the color of his uniform. In his own way, he helped America become what it is and deserves to be remembered, respected, and loved no less than any other.

When I wear my forage cap, I will wear it for all of them.