Thursday, December 24, 2009

An Acre at Malvern Hill


When the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) call to action to help save 178 acres of Malvern Hill came in the mail the other day, my thoughts went to three captains that I've researched whose lives were touched by the fighting during this last engagement of the Seven Days' Battles.

George Pierce of the Tenth Massachusetts Infantry, who suffered a gunshot wound in the right arm in the fighting there on July 1, 1862. Dennis Moore of the Sixty-first New York Infantry, struck by an artillery shell in his right calf at nearby Nelson's Farm on June 30, 1862. A surgeon amputated Moore's damaged leg below the knee on the battlefield, and he lay there the next day as the battle raged at Malvern Hill. Motier Norton of the Eighteenth New York Infantry, who fell ill with typhoid fever shortly after the battle. Exposure to the rigors of campaigning in the field compromised his health and forced him to resign his commission. Each of these men are profiled in Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories.

It was with these veterans in mind that I wrote a check to save an acre of Malvern Hill. And to preserve the land that these three captains and tens of thousands of other soldiers fought over. And for future generations of men and women, boys and girls, who might someday walk across a pristine plot of ground in Virginia and wonder about the soldiers who happened on that spot a long, long time ago.

It feels good to contribute to something much larger than yourself.

Tis always the season.

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