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In My Opinion:
I have been interested in Archaeology since I was a young boy. I do not remember when I got the bug. I remember finding arrowheads with my Granddaddy and finding small fossils with my parents and I was gone. Since then I have read everything I could find. Then, as a boy scout we found the gray clay-like remains of a Union soldier at Port Hudson. First we found the haft and part of the blade of his bayonet. Then we found the hammer and trigger and a bit of the barrel. Then we found his badge off his hat, then a belt buckle and a pocket buckle and a pocketknife. Then the three of us that were doing the finding realized we were going through the remains of a dead soldier. The gray clay on our fingers was not the same as the red-brown clay that was everywhere else. One of the boys freaked out. I am not sure which of us stopped him from washing his hands. We figured if this was the remains of the soldier, then we ought to try to put them back and see if we could arrange a burial. We carefully scrapped the moist cool clay from our hands and clothes and went and got the Scout Master. We buried him where he fell, on the side of one of the ravines a hundred yards or so from the ramparts of Fort Desperate. Our Scout Master took some compass readings and measurements for Graves, and the incident was the talk of the troop for a week or two.
I never forgot that experience. More than the head stones at the National Cemetery, the fortifications at Port Hudson, and the clean and sterile artifacts in the Civil War museums, finding that soldier brought the real history of Port Hudson home. (At the time about 1973 or 1974, the State Park and on-site museum at Port Hudson did not exist. The closest museums with information on Port Hudson were on the related battle fields in Jackson Mississippi and New Orleans Louisiana.)
I think about that soldier sometimes now and then, especially when I take my kids for hikes in Port Hudson. It is so beautiful there. You almost have to be a soldier, and part archaeologist, to even begin to know there were fortifications there a hundred a fifty years ago. It is serene. It is pretty. It is the kind of place lovers go to walk and hold hands. It is the sort of place families can enjoy hiking... Now. The soldier in me reads the terrain. I can't help it. I suspect I will always hate crowds, scan rooftops and analyze the terrain for ambushes and rally points. It is part of the life I lived. It doesn't stop me from enjoying life, but it helps me hear the whispers of that long ago battle. That was not a time to be a grunt... Not and have to attack that fort. I think all of the men that fell there would enjoy knowing that families can now enjoy the cursed and blasted land they fought and died on. I think both the blue and the grey would appreciate knowing that freedom, christanity and family outings live on, even if the mode of travel we use to get there might upset them. Can you picture a minivan in the Mississppi River Delta in 1866? I wonder if the Toyto warranty would cover damage from the Civil War?
Being able to touch the evidence of the
past, to have a part in finding it made history real for me. Knowing
that there is evidence out there, in the ground and under the leaves fascinates
me. With careful study we can find the clues to tell us what passed
before us, how things lived, why they died, how people before us solved
the issues they faced, or perhaps how they did not solve them...
Civilization, Advancing or not?
Questioning Convergence
Dinosaurs
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