I recently visited Shiloh National Military Park. The Shiloh Battlefield occupies acres of mown farmland and forest, dotted with countless colorful markers, like the aftermath of a complicated board game. Each marker signifies the spot where a skirmish took place, an important figure died, or a group of unidentified dead were buried. There are many markers for mass graves.
Shiloh was the first major battle of the American Civil War, the first indication of the slaughter that was to come. Two days of fighting ended with 23,000 casualties, more than all prior US wars combined, but not even half the number that would one day fall at the battle of Gettysburg.
As I drove through mile after mile of memorials to the lost, I felt haunted. I am not a believer in ghosts, but I do believe in memory. The people who survived this massacre were determined that it should not be forgotten, and they and their supporters constructed these markers and tombstones, this entire park, to make their memories solid and eternal.
One of my favorite things about US national parks is that many of them tell tragic stories. That might sound counterintuitive–why wouldn’t I want them to be full of joy?
But I love that some parks tell the harsh truths. That my country, in a rare act of collective wisdom, knew that setting aside places where terrible things happened might be a reminder to future generations to not repeat those terrible things.
That is what war memorials are about. For all the fetishism that some people feel for war history (and who can blame them–who doesn’t enjoy a fetish or two), the reality is that these sites are massive warning labels placed on humanity.
DANGER: THIS SPECIES WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IF LED ASTRAY BY HATE AND IGNORANCE.
Current conflicts around the world contributed to my dark mood that day at Shiloh. People are still fighting wars; the warnings are either not read or not heeded.
And yet. And yet I stopped at another spot amid the fields of death, to visit another site full of ghosts. Ones that told a different story.
There’s an ancient Native American–Mississipian, to be exact–village in the heart of the battlefield. Mounds, small hills of packed earth that once added impressive height to important town buildings, still convey the outline of a community. The largest, which can be climbed, overlooks the Tennessee River, once the domain and life-line of these people.
The site was abandoned long before Europeans brought their diseases and thirst for land and riches to the Americas, so it’s not another site of massacre and tragedy. It’s a village, with a town center amid the mounds, a place where daily life happened, and maybe some special moments too.
First loves, children’s laughter, a celebration of the life of a treasured person. These things happened here, in this spot.
The Mississipian mounds are also markers, memories given form. They tell of the other side of humanity, the side that lives and loves. The side that wants to build monuments to the living, not the dead.
I walked through the mounds, crunching newly fallen leaves, and I thought about death. And I thought about life. And I got back in my car, feeling grateful for all the lessons the dead have to teach us.
For more info about Shiloh National Military Park, check out the Park of the Week Newsletter about Shiloh here.