Teaching myself a lesson

The deserted fields of Chickamauga

Perhaps one of the most unsettling aspects of my recent sojourn at Chickamauga was the inconsistent quantity and quality of visitor to the park.  Having spent my youth and adolescence less than five miles from the rural Pickett's Mill State Park, I'm no stranger to the phenomenon of being the only soul in sight as I walk among the trenches; having grown up virtually in the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain, I am unfortunately well-acquainted with the concept of hallowed ground being primarily used as a dog park.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is the nation's first park that was devoted to the memory of the bloody deeds that are committed on a battlefield.  As the day progressed, however, it became apparent that even this field was to suffer the ignominious fate that its southern brethren know so well.  Not only was the park seemingly deserted from my arrival (9:00 AM) until 3:00 PM, when I reached the Wilder Brigade Tower, what visitors I did eventually come across apparently could not have cared less that they were standing on consecrated ground.  The trio of teenage girls at the top of the Wilder tower were discussing prom; the two Latino children below were swinging from the artillery surrounding the monument as through it were a jungle gym.  After 5:00 PM rolled around, when those with desk jobs started making it home, the park became did finally become alive -  with joggers, cyclists, and, yes, dog walkers.

The Wilder Brigade Tower at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park

I'm not going to take it for granted that the park did eventually find itself a hive of activity.  I think its fantastic that its on the radar screens of both locals and visitors alike (one of the prom-obsessed girls was apparently visiting from Alabama).  But simply going to a place of that magnitude without reason, without understanding, strikes me as insulting to the memories of those who fought and died there.  Lytle's Hill is not just an obstacle for you to overcome as you practice for your track meet.

But then, of course, I find myself reassessing my vehemence and pulling up short.  In his masterful work Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life, David Glassberg writes that memory sites do not exist as unchanging monoliths in a static world.  Rather, they change and shift based on the subjective perspective of the person doing the viewing.  Perhaps the girls at the Wilder monument do not share the same reverence that I feel when I consider the cultural importance that the battlefield possesses.  Perhaps instead, the tower is the site of childhood dreams and family outings.  Maybe the joggers don't mind blithely passing by the markers to men and deeds a century and a half past.  Or maybe they're locals who spend as much time standing awestruck on the field during the weekends that I spend during the weekdays, and have found a way to both get their exercise and stand on hallowed ground at the same time.  I don't know, can never know, and cannot take it for granted that my reverence is somehow superior to that of others.  It's a trap that I've fallen into time and time again, and I must learn to suppress the instinct.  The personal peace I find on a battle site is just that: personal.  I cannot expect it to be a universal constant.

Maybe those girls only care that they can see for miles from the top of the monument.  Maybe they don't.  It's not my place, or anyone else's, to judge their reason for being at Chickamauga.  It only matters that they were there, and in doing so contributed their own bit of memory to the collective identity that the park now reflects.  An active park that has found itself transformed into a family and community center beats an empty park any day of the week.  And besides, the men who fought at Chickamauga did so for the right to do as one pleases.  If today's citizens choose to use that freedom to spend a day at a lovely park, historical awareness aside, then perhaps their presence there is only fitting.

Image Sources: http://www.waymarking.com, http://www.examiner.com