By J. MARK POWELL<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another Memorial Day is here. For one Monday in May, work is forgotten, replaced by a day at the beach or lake, backyard cookouts, and savoring the unofficial start of the summer season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet it\u2019s also a time for remembering, for pausing to recall that the freedom which makes this holiday possible came at a steep price. And over the decades, many New Yorkers made the ultimate sacrifice in fulfilling that payment. As many of those distant battlefields fade through the mist of time, it is fitting that we pause and stir to memory just how terrible that sacrifice actually was.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why in-the-moment accounts like those found in my new book, \u201cWitness to War: The Story of the Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It\u201d (Stackpole Books 2026), are so helpful in resurrecting long-lost moments of courage, bravery, and honor.<\/p>\n
Consider young\u00a0George W. Fernald (1840\u20131918), a private in the 82nd New York Infantry. He told his told his cousin in New\u00a0York City about the ugly reality of combat\u2019s aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Seven Pines, Virginia<\/p>\n
June 2, 1862<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We have just had another bloody battle within seven miles of Richmond. The enemy attacked our advance on Friday and were driven back. On Saturday, they got reinforcements and drove our advance in. So we were ordered to the front and marched about four miles at the double quick step, and we had about one hour\u2019s hard fighting. We drove the enemy back but had to sleep on the battlefield with the dead and wounded, which you know was not very pleasant.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yesterday, we were ordered down to support the Irish Brigade. We have not had anything to eat but a few crackers since we left camp on Saturday. It makes me sick to see the battlefield, for it is covered with the dead and wounded. The dead are beginning to bloat and smell bad, but I hope they will soon be buried and the wounded cared for. The enemy retreated last night to Richmond. We have not heard what our loss is yet, but it is heavy, while that of the enemy is still heavier. I think the loss in our regiment is about fifty.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Please excuse this as I wrote it on my cartridge box and am very tired.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve read more than 25,000 letters like this over the years from the men and women who lived through the Civil War. Each one is a reminder that, while we plant flags at gravestones on Memorial Day to remember the fallen, under each marker rests a real person, someone just like us, thrown into a terrible moment in America\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
The nearly 40,000 New Yorkers who perished were among the more than 600,000 Americans on both sides who died in that conflict. (Modern research suggests the actual number might possibly have been as high as 750,000, which would have been almost 5% of the male population in the country at the time. The U.S. never experienced bloodshed of that before or since.)<\/p>\n
Those service members, as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it at Gettysburg, \u201cgave the last full measure of devotion.\u201d We are free to enjoy this holiday today because of the price they paid.<\/p>\n
However, we should also keep in mind Ronald Reagan’s words: \u201cFreedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.\u201d Meaning no automatic assurance today can guarantee our liberty will still be here tomorrow unless we safeguard and maintain it.<\/p>\n
So, this Memorial Day, enjoy the time away from work. Have fun at the beach or lake. Savor the taste of the burgers and hot dogs at your neighborhood cookout. Also, be sure to stop for just a moment and remember the legacy of all those who made it possible.<\/p>\n
J. Mark Powell is a former TV journalist and diehard history buff. His newest book, “Witness To War: The Story of the Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It” is now available. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tJ. Mark Powell,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Memorial Day,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Inside Sources,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t liberty,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Civil War\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By J. MARK POWELL \u00a0 \u00a0 Another Memorial Day is here. For one Monday in May, work is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[94784,94783,94782,14282,81735,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-242463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-civil-war","tag-inside-sources","tag-j-mark-powell","tag-liberty","tag-memorial-day","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}