Monday, April 30, 2018

First Paragraph

It was a cold November day in 1997 when I traveled to Pennsylvania to commemorate the anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The ridges along the battlefield stood out sharp and clear in the morning light as a brisk wind scattered fallen leaves across the frozen fields. After the ceremony we toured the battlefield accompanied by the British military historian John Keegan. We began by tracing the Confederate battle line southward, stopping frequently to look across the fields at the imposing heights of Cemetery Ridge, trying to imagine the emotions as Pickett and his men awaited orders to storm across the open fields and up the heights toward the entrenched Union troops.

- From Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America by Bruce Babbitt

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