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For the 104th NY Volunteers, Saunder’s Field,
529 engaged; 23 killed; 118 wounded; 114 missing.
I stood on your battlefields.
I heard the screams.
I smelled the smoke.
I felt the terror.
I looked out on
the same blue sky as they did,
and the earthworks thrown
up by a passing century
were overrun as quickly as
the trenches down the road.
Deep in Virginia,
on a peaceful
farmer’s field, where not even
a cow grazed, in this absolute
middle of nowhere,
far from our manic streets and the
noise that means
home, I found
a memorial to my fellow
New Yorkers, a moment’s
heroism scribed in
stone, in this place
where something
once happened, and
whispering, “Thank you,”
was routed by
cannonades
of silence.
The Wilderness Battlefield, Va.
October 2000