May 20-22 USA weekend which appears in the Montgomery Advertiser has an article by Ken Burns which I found very interesting. He mentions that there were 10,000 places in which the "Civil War" (as Yankees call it) was fought. That is a bit off-putting, but he narrows his picks to 10.
You can guess most of them but I will list them all the same. They are listed chronologically, from the start of the war. Number one being of course, Fort Sumter.There, he says, you begin to feel the presence of all the forces, North and South, at the start of the war. The only casualty was a horse.
Second is the First Battle of (he calls it Bull Run,) we call it Manassas, because the South called the battles after the town, and the North called it after the nearest body of water. No one, as Ken points out understood that it was going to be the holocaust it became.
Third was Shiloh, Tenn. He says two days in April 1862 made for the biggest battle of the Civil War up to that point. Its beautiful now so it is hard to imagine the carnage that took place.
Next was Antietam, near Sharpsburg MD. 23,000 casualties; no other battle had as many dead and wounded as Antietam produced that day. i have been there and seen what they called "Bloody Lane".
Fifth was Fredericksburg, Va., which Mr. Burns says was a particularly horrendous battle that took place between Richmond and Washington. There was even street-to-street fighting there.
I will list the other five in my next blog beginning with....you guess?
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