A Walk in the Battlefield Woods

On Memorial Day I raised the Old Flag (the same style that flew over Fort Sumter) over our castle and headed
off to hike another section of the Monocacy Battlefield. I chose the Thomas Farm trails because the area they cover is where most of the battle was fought. My first stop was the Visitor’s Center. As they do every Memorial Day they had covered the front lawn with US and Confederate flags – apparently one for each battle casualty.

One must prepare for arduous substitute Appalachian Trial hikes. On my feet were my pair of surplus 3LC Tan Desert Mil Spec Boots and I carried a homemade hiking stick that I converted from my former reenacting dog tent ridge pole. The stick has been christened the “Shaft of the Union” or SotU. The SotU proved very useful for footing since the trails meander up and down some steep hills along the river. I hope to get the SotU signed up for a Visitor Center movie. The audience will see it pointing to various parts of the field as the narrator intones what happened there.

Reenactors would, uh, reenact the battle. If the same folks who did the Antietam visitor’s center film are still around to do this one, it could be great! Otherwise we will get the guy who perpetrated the Classic Images 125^th videos and go for the unintended comedy effect.

Monocacy is an unusual civil war battlefield in that there are very few monuments and not very many interpretive signs (explanations that this happened here). When one is hiking the “self-interpreting trails” (i.e., get the free brochure or buy one of the inexpensive but excellent booklets about the battle and we hope you don’t collapse out there cause no one will find you!) one is out there in the woods with no indications that anything out of the ordinary ever took place. In fact most times I have gone solo hiking the trails I have not encountered anyone else on them.

Yesterday however I ran into two people whom I took be a couple out walking their dogs. As I got up close I could see they were two women and seemed indeed to be a couple – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I nodded. One studiously ignored me and the leader nodded back. That was the extent of the humanity I met on the Thomas Farm portion of the Monocacy Battlefield.

Our dachshund Max is recovering from back surgery he had on March 13. He actually walks most of the time now. Dachshunds it seems are high maintenance dogs and one in four will experience what max suffered. I am glad we had the $$ for the surgery. After the doctor explained the options – basically surgery or permanent paralysis – and told me the cost of the operation, I nodded and told him I’d play the odds (85% success) and to go ahead. So $6700 and two months and two weeks later, it looks like we won. Was it worth it? Yes; we have had several dogs put down because there was no treatment to reverse their conditions (usually old age related) and so no hope. This was different.

Besides not having to have my beloved dog put down, this positive report means I could probably go to the commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a somewhat more famous affair than Monocacy. Will I? Likely not. The flesh is weak and the spirit is waffling. Still, it is a 150^th, so…

Adios!