The Vision Place of Souls 18 x 24 on Wallis pastel paper

Along this wall to the trees in the distance would crash what would become known as the “High Tide” of the Confederacy. Never again would the Army of Northern Virginia make a serious foray onto Northern soil as they did in July 1863.

In 1889, young men, aged by time, would return to this field and many like it, to remember their lost youth. They would come here and elsewhere to remember their family and friends, neighbors, who would never leave these fields. But they would come here, not just for the past but also for the future. For people of today, so they too might think of those young men, and just what they sacrificed, because what they sacrificed are the footprints of our nation today.

This is no more evident than these words, uttered by Joshua L. Chamberlain in October 1889, when he would say: “In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls…generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.”