“Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864” by Chris Mackowski

Once Ulysses S. Grant became commander of all the Union’s armies, he undertook two efforts that ultimately helped defeat the Confederacy. First, he coordinated the campaigns of all of the Northern armies, and not only those forces under his immediate command. Second, he made a concerted effort to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond.  

In 1864, the campaign against Richmond was renewed in earnest. Grant was attempting to avoid a frontal assault and instead sweep around and back. To do that, he had to move his Army of the Potomac through 70 square miles of densely wooded terrain known as the Wilderness. The area was inhabited, if sparsely. Moving an army through it, with its artillery and supply wagons, would be difficult, but Grant was determined.

 

So was Robert E. Lee. He understood what Grant was attempting, and he was just as determined to stop him. Two steel wills clashed – and the Wilderness exploded. Literally.

 

In Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864, Chris Mackowski does two things. He tells the story of the main points of the battle, and he provides detailed directions for a tour of the battlefield by automobile. (“Battlefield” is a limiting term here; there was no one field or area of open terrain where everything happened.) The book is part of the Emerging Civil War Series. 

 

Chris Markowski

In addition to writing some of the volumes, Mackowski serves as editor for the entire effort. A professor at St. Bonaventure University, he has B.A., M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. degrees in communication, English, and creative writing. The author of some nine books, he’s written extensively on the Civil War for a number of publications. He also worked for the National Park Service and gave tours of the Civil War battlefields at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. 

 

The Wilderness was a horrific battle, deserving of the name given by one its participants, “Hell Itself.” The terrain and denseness of the forest often meant hand-to-hand combat. Artillery fire often resulted in the woods catching fire, and soldiers on both sides were burned to death. 

 

Hell Itself brings the battle to life, making the reader feel almost a first-hand observer. You wonder, as did many who fought there, how anyone made it out of those woods alive.

 

Related:

 

Attack at Daylight and Whip Them: The Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862 by Gregory Mertz.

 

The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863 by Robert Orrison and Dan Welch.

“Pillar of Fire: Poems for the Lenten Journey” by Oscar Truitt

It’s one of the dramatic images of the Book of Exodus. Egypt’s pharaoh, reeling under the disasters of the 10 plagues, has finally agreed to let the Israelites go. The quickest and easiest way to the promised land was via the land of the Philistines, but God directs them through the wilderness of Egypt toward the Red Sea. He knew that if they immediately ran into battle and war with the Philistines, they’d immediately choose to return to Egypt and slavery.

“And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people” (Exodus 13:21-22, English Standard Version). The distance wasn’t terribly far by modern standards, but upwards of a million people had to travel by day and by night. Speed was of the essence, because God knew the pharaoh would change his mind and come after them. The more complicated route would also set the stage for one of the great miracles recorded in the Old Testament – the parting of the sea to allow the Israelites’ passage, and its subsequent coming together to drown the Egyptian army.

This image of pillars leading the people to safety is an appropriate one for Oscar Truitt’s new poetry collection, Pillar of Fire: Poems for the Lenten Journey. Lent lasts for 40 days, similar to the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, and analogous to the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the Arabian peninsula. It is a time of preparation, and of setting aside worldly things, as Christians worldwide prepare for Holy Week, the crucifixion, and Easter or Resurrection Sunday. Truitt’s poems offer a way to mark and meditate upon each day until Easter.

Many of the poems are taken from specific verses and accounts of Scripture – the prodigal son, the publican and the Pharisee, the lilies of the field, Zacchaeus who climbed a tree to see Jesus walk by, the parable of the 10 virgins, Mary Magdalene, the betrayal by Judas, the prayer in Gethsemane, the rich man and the beggar, the raising of Lazarus, and the crucifixion. Others relate to people and practices in the Orthodox Church – the Adoration of the Cross, the Holy Martyrs, Saint Gregory Palamas, Saint Mary of Egypt, and Saint John of the Ladder. 

Together, the poems are pulled from a rich tapestry of Scripture, tradition, and church history.

In one of the daily meditations, here’s how the poet explicates a passage of Scripture, the account of Jesus cursing the fig tree.

The Fig Tree

(Matthew 21:18-19)

Nature requires of me

That I give something of myself

To those who come with hunger

On this path where I am planted;

But my life has been

Like a tree without fruit,

Unprepared for its season,

Grown, but not productive.

I have squandered all my talents

And they have not borne blossoms

Despite the good intentions

And promises I’d made.

Will it be my lot in life 

To wither prematurely

Without ever having shown

I had something good to offer?

Oscar Truitt

Truitt is a poet who is the author of The Yes That is Enlightenment. He is the administrator of the Facebook group Contemporary Psalms. He and his family live in Massachusetts.

Pillar of Fire is a welcome addition to the Lenten devotional genre. The poems possess a quiet beauty, often a starkness, as they take the reader through the 40 days of the period. And they are a reminder of why we should prepare and ready ourselves for what is coming.

Top illustration: Pillar of Fire by Paul Hardy in The Art Bible (1896), via Wikipedia.

Walk the road

Walk the road at night

wilderness road

wilderness night

darkness canopied

by stars, night sky

wilderness night sky

stars emblazon without

lighting the road 

pause

stop

gaze upward

reach 

cut

fingers on the stars

blood

drops on the road

wilderness road

wilderness night 

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Life as Wilderness Trek

As she tells the story in Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fears, five days after her first round of chemotherapy, Margaret Feinberg kept a commitment to lead a spiritual retreat in Maine. Everything was going fine until the third day and the scheduled nine-mile hike up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.  

Almost from the outset, everything began to go wrong, for Margaret and the group. Some became separated from the main group. Others began to fatigue and peeled off, returning to base. A couple got lost temporarily. Some got sunburned. Margaret herself began to lose energy, decided to hurry back, took the wrong trail (with most of the group following her) and had to climb back up to find the right trailhead. 

That sounds like a metaphor. A metaphor for life. Wrong turns. Enthusiasm finding a harsh reality. Making wrong choices. Making bad choices. Physical problems. Assuming you can do more than you actually can. Disappointment. 

So, she asks, where’s the joy?  

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, right before I read this chapter in Feinberg’s book I listened to the sermon preached by one of our pastors Sunday. The Scripture was Psalm 102. If you haven’t read it, or aren’t familiar with it, it’s a lament. The New International Version has a brief lead-in: “A prayer of an afflicted man. When he is faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.” 

What is the psalmist lamenting? Disappointment. Depression (or what sounds just like it). Listlessness. Purposelessness. Persecution by enemies. Feeling useless. “Withering away like grass.” 

Been there. Done that.  

We’ve all experienced these feelings and situations. All the neo-prosperity gospelites to the contrary, life is not a mansion, big Mercedes Benz, and a timeshare in Monaco. Life is hard. Problems happen. Loved ones get sick. You get sick. Jobs are lost. Dreams are postponed and then cancelled. People do awful things to you. You do awful things to people. 

Whatever happened to “and they all lived happily ever after?” 

Life is, well, hard. Bad things happen to good people, and all the time. Women and children are kidnapped by those who pride themselves on achieving new levels of vicious violence. The wicked prosper.  

The psalmist has an answer, one very similar to what Feinberg discovered. As much as we rebel against the idea, the fact is that life – this life – is not all about us. This life is always about a larger story.  

And the joy is in that larger story. 

Led by Jason Stasyzen and Sarah Salter, we’re reading Margaret Feinberg’s Fight Back with Joy. To see other posts on this week’s chapter, “The Biggest Myth About Joy,” please visit Sarah at LivingBetween the Lines.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Desert time

Not 40 years of purification

not 40 days of temptation

not honey and locusts

not days of birth pangs

   or groaning too terrible

   to endure

but a desert time

arid

heat in the day

cold in the night

   but dry

   always dry

an ocean of sand

   windblown

   waterless

   without shade

   or respite

wandering in desert time

Photograph by Lila Frerichs via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Called to wilderness

The voice called

to the wilderness seeking

fulfillment of a promise made

called to the desert of Judea

a promise made

kept

the desert with its dirt and rock

wind, sun

caravans passing by

trading in camel’s hair

a feast of insects:

locusts

a feast from insects:

honey

a feast to call repent

and be baptized

repent

they came to repent

they came to be baptized

they came to hear the words:

the word, the preface

The preface,

not the beginning

the preface

not the end

the preface

the water, not

the spirit

He comes after

and I tremble

Photograph by Free Bible Images. Used with permission.

Charles Martin’s “The Mountain Between Us”

Orthopedic surgeon Ben Payne is in Salt Like City, trying to fly to Denver before a big snowstorm hits. He meets a writer, Ashley Knox, who’s trying to get home to Atlanta for her wedding. At the last minute, the flight is cancelled. But Ben is able to find a charter pilot who will fly him to Denver, and he invites Ashley to come along.

Over the Uinta Mountains, the pilot has a heart attack, but manages to crash-land the plane before he dies. When Ben regains consciousness, he knows he has broken ribs. Ashley’s leg is broken. The snow has closed in and largely buried them.

Neither Ben nor Ashley told anyone they were taking a charter flight. The pilot didn’t tell the tower he had passengers. No one will know to look for them or a plane crash. They are out of cell phone range, and far, far from anything even suggesting human activity. From the crashed plane, Ben fashions a sled to pull Ashley, and they set out into the unknown.

Charles Martin has written a number of remarkable novels that connect place and relationship – novels like Chasing Fireflies, The Dead Don’t Dance, Maggie, Wrapped in Rain, When Crickets Cry, and Where the River Ends. Martin is as much a storyteller of landscape as he is of people and brokenness. All of his previous works have been based in the southeastern United States – Georgia, northern Florida and South Carolina, a familiar landscape for Martin. With The Mountain Between Us (published in 2010), while part of the story is based in the Jacksonville area, Martin sets most of his story in the Utah wilderness.

It’s a riveting story of survival, stripping away all the facades constructed by two people who come to depend upon each other for their very lives.

Ben is married to Rachel, with two children. Ashley is engaged to marry with two days time. They will spend the next four weeks together fighting snow, fending off mountain lions, trying to find food and shelter and somehow find civilization. And tend to their injuries.

Along the way Ashley will learn that Ben is separated from his wife, and Ben will learn that Ashley isn’t entirely convinced she should be marrying Vince. Yet each remains faithful, even as they are forced into a personal proximity to each other that most married couples don’t have. And Ashley begins to sense that Ben is carrying some deep personal pain that he won’t let go of.

Martin’s usual attention to detail – a trademark of his writing – is fully employed here, so much so that the reader is walking and crawling with them, hunting rabbits and moose, desperately trying to stay alive. It’s an unforgiving landscape, it’s winter, and the cold is felt on every page.

It’s a captivating story, written with the skill I’ve come to expect from Charles Martin.