A Civil War Weekend

More pleasant then it sounds.

Lisa came over this weekend and as usual we had a good time. The first night (Thursday) I made veggie sloppy joe sandwiches for dinner. It's amazing how enjoyable that little piece of domestic normalcy was. The rest of the night was spent watching the season finale of The Apprentice. We have a love/hate relationship with this show, which I imagine is the case for most people who watch it. I'm glad it's over and I can start enjoying My Name Is Earl again.

Saturday we went to the movies to check out 10,000 B.C. It was a thoroughly competent movie. It was basically a retelling of Stargate (the movie) and so inoffensive it was like a dinner of saltines. It was pretty though. I've basically forgotten we saw it until I started writing this review of the weekend.

After the movie we traveled down to Fredricksburg to check out the Civil War battlefields of the area. I love Civil War history and if I had a memory longer than my pinky toe I would be a genius at it from all the National Parks we've been to that commemorate the war. We see films and tour battlefields and yet I can't remember when the War started or ended. Lisa is pretty indifferent to the Civil War memorials. She's just there for the stamps in our National Parks passport. It's nice to have her along though, sometimes she puts voice to a question I've had before but never thought to articulate. She came up with one such question after watching the film on Fredricksburg. The history goes, the Federal troops commanded by General Burnside charged Marye's Heights (pronounced Marie) but were stopped cold by Confederate troops at the sunken road.

Sunken Road with Confederate Dead

The question on Lisa's mind was why all of these men would continue to march to their doom? I know that isn't exactly the most insightful question ever asked but it is one I've never seen answered in the books I've read or the films I've seen. I mean the answer would seem as simple as not wanting to get shot for desertion but what super genius decides this is a militarily sound tactic? I know from watching films like All Quiet On The Western Front and Gallopoli that it was decades (and probably the advent of the machine gun) that someone decided this wasn't the optimum use of resources. Still, Lisa and I both wondered why Burnside didn't send his troops north to flank the Confederates. The only reason I could come up with is the lack of quick communications on a battlefield in the days before radios and aircraft. As the death of General Stonewall Jackson proves (as if there was any question) recon of a battlefield is dangerous business. I imagine that there are a thousand historians that could explain the reasons. It all has to do with the paradigm of warfare. I'm sure I've even known at one time but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that the philosphy behind warfare tactics was so elemental and ridiculous.

Sunken Road, 29 March 2008. The view from the other direction.

I don't really have a conclusion to this post. I enjoyed the weekend, got to see some interesting history that I will shortly forget and best of all I got to do it with my favorite woman ever, Lisa.