Good morning from Porte’s hometown of Martinsburg, WV where the highs are expected to rise into the low 50s today. No rain to speak of but the forecast is calling for breezy conditions, so it might feel a little cooler.
Just the way November should be …
That video I shared last week — you watched it, right?
On second thought, don’t tell me.
Let me have the delusion that you’re enthusiastically engaging with each email I send as if it’s Christmas morning and you just tore the wrapping off the BEST. GIFT. EVER. I’d even settle for the sort of excitement brought on by the holiday socks you might receive each year.
Socks may not make you drop your jaw in delight, but on the other hand you need them. And you know you’re going to wear them, so long as they’re not so small that they cut off the circulation below the ankle.
Guess I’m saying I’m okay if you don’t tremble with joy every time one of these emails turns up in your inbox. A holiday socks level of delight is fine with me. Socks are useful and in my view, it’s always best that someone else replenish the sock drawer.
Not exactly sure where I was going with that, but I got to thinking about that video while I was out walking Ornery Dog Jasper on Thursday. If you watched it (right?), you already know that it’s based on one of Porte’s diary entries from the Civil War, about the aftermath of the First Battle of Kernstown. Porte didn’t take part in it, but he did bear witness to the carnage when he visited the battlefield the day after the fighting stopped.
I looked up the full diary entry. It’s from March 24, 1862. As the video notes, Porte wrote of “a dead horse or two” and “the body of a soldier with the top of his head blown off” and of coming upon the bodies of 40 Confederates, each shot through the head, their bodies “among the bushes and trees just as they fell.”
“I searched through this bloody field with a sort of horrid curiosity, examining each gully and rock heap to find some still more hideous form of death that I had yet seen.” ~ David Hunter Strother
Kernstown isn’t that far away from my Martinsburg home — just a short, half-hour drive up Interstate 81. So when ODJ and I returned home from our daily stroll around the neighborhood, I bundled him into the car and off we went.
Our destination was Rose Hill Park — where the final act of the battle unfolded on March 23, 1862. The area saw unspeakable violence on that day. Porte’s diary entry is a testament to that. Today, it’s a good place to walk the dog.
Rose Hill is a public park outside Winchester, VA. It was opened in 2016 and is operated jointly by the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley and the Frederick County Parks and Recreation Department. It offers a wide, crushed stone loop trail that’s just over a mile long and takes dog walkers through a wide open landscape dotted with giant rolls of hay. Along the way, there are interpretive signs about the battle fought there and a reconstructed stone wall used for cover by the combatants. In his diary entry, Porte referred to a “stone fence” where he found “more bodies thickly strewed among the rocks, vines and undergrowth.”
So much for cover.
ODJ took great interest in the stone wall. He was probably simply checking out what was left behind by other dogs who have likely done their business on it, but I wonder if he somehow picked up on what happened there.
The scent of war can’t be that easy to erase.
Porte’s diary entry for March 24, 1862, in full:
As I rode out of town I met Andrew Kennedy, who told me that the country was full of Henderson's cavalry and advised me pressingly not to ride alone, saying there was a special danger for me as being an object of hatred to the Rebels. I gave the subject a few minutes' consideration and then determined to go on, taking the precaution, however, to keep my right hand ungloved and my pistol holster unbuttoned. . . . In Berryville I found Captain Abert. There had been a battle at Winchester. Shields was certainly wounded and all General Banks' division was on the march from Snicker's Ferry to Winchester.
After dinner I started to Winchester overtaking en route Gordon's brigade. As soon as I could, I visited the field of yesterday's battle. It was two or three miles beyond the town on a ridge partially wooded and partially cultivated and some distance from the Valley pike. The fences were torn down and the ground marked with artillery wheels where the Federal troops had first taken position. A dead horse or two were visible and the body of a soldier with the top of his head blown off lay protected by a rail pen. Crossing a field and a wood I came upon an open ridge where marks of artillery wheels and another body of a United States soldier lay. Near here a picket guard lay by a fire and beside them upon a rail trestle lay fifteen dead Federalists. In a thicket and rock break about two or three hundred yards distant the Confederate dead lay. Entering the break I observed the bushes and trees cut to pieces with musketry in a manner terrible to witness. Here within a very small space lay forty bodies of the Confederates. The bodies lay among the bushes and trees just as they fell, and were without exception shot through the head with musket balls. The sun had set and the dull red light from the west fell upon the upturned faces of the dead, giving a lurid dimness to the scene that highlighted its ghastly effect.
From this thicket extending some distance along the line of a stone fence lay more bodies thickly strewed among the rocks, vines, and undergrowth. I searched through this bloody field with a sort of horrid curiosity, examining each gully and rock heap to find some still more hideous form of death than I had yet seen. There was enough to gratify one's taste for horrors, and in my seeking I failed to recognize any face with which I was acquainted. All the arms and equipments were taken away and the pockets rifled and generally all the buttons clipped off as objects of curiosity for the soldiers. It had now become dark and I turned to ride back to Winchester. . . . I got a good supper and passed the night at Gordon's quarters.
Admittedly, I don’t have/make time to read all the entries but when I do, I always enjoy them. And I always expect at least a few pairs of socks every holiday season. They come in handy, like you said. Wondering if ODJ is a reference to the rapper ODB? 😂 🤔