What About the Lincoln Movie?

Every week I am amazed by the thorough job Alex J. Cavanaugh does reviewing the latest movies. I admire the people who do those reviews on television as well. However, we never get to movie theaters anymore. I suppose when you get caught up with watching baseball games most every day and living a creative life that often takes over other things, there just isn't any time left.

However, occasionally I do watch a movie on television, and Sunday night I saw Lincoln. Even on the small screen, this movie was powerful. Everything was basically black and white. I later wondered if the movie was in color at all. That was a time of darkness. So much was lost on those Civil War battlefields.

As a child, I grew up near Sunken Road where one of the bloodiest battles of the war took place. Marye's Heights was not far away from my home. Fredericksburg was under siege for many days, and the elementary school I attended still had bloodstains on the floors from its service as a Civil War hospital. Sometimes I could still feel the pain in the old city streets.

The art gallery where I showed my work for 10 years was located in Petersburg not many steps away from where the Lincoln movie was made. A photographer with a studio near mine managed to take pictures of some of the movie sets. Having Steven Spielberg in the city was a real big deal for residents. As I watched the movie on Sunday, I tried to recognize some of the settings there and in Richmond. It brought back memories and sadness for dark days in our nation's history. It made me remember the poem I wrote for the anthology, Happy Birthday, Mr Lincloln! published by the National League of American Pen Women in 2009. It made me remember too much.

 Mr. Lincoln, Did You Hear?

Mr. Lincoln, did you hear

Voices whisper in the night?

Forget not they passed this way

Forget not the march they made

Forget not the song they sang

Forget not the streets

Of old Petersburg

Where their footsteps echo in the night.

Mr. Lincoln, did you hear

Dying cries of ten thousand men

And more—all lost near a sunken road?

Or were they vanquished at Marye’s Heights?

So many soldiers brave and young

They fought for country, family, pride

As did the men of General Lee

Who battled anxious, long, and valiant.

Mr. Lincoln, did you hear

Screams of fury in the night?

Where pontoons crossed mud-struck waters

Guns blazed from village shops and homes

Cannonballs embedded thick walls of brick.

Confusion, pain

A school with bloodstained floors

All there in old Fredericksburg.

Mr. Lincoln, did you hear

The march onward to Richmond?

Wheeled guns upon a hill

War-weary generals who believed

A country divided cannot stand

Virginia, the first English colony

Forget not the blood flowing in her streets

Where footsteps still echo in the night.

©Mary Montague Sikes, April 2008

Around the World in 30 Days -- Fredericksburg, VA

"Angel Light from the Sky" - MMSikes

Around the World in 30 Days with the Passenger to Paradise continues with the "F" destination -- Fredericksburg, Virginia, the city of her birth. She recalls growing up there in the shadow of the Civil War Battlefields. For much of her childhood, she lived just below Sunken Road where thousands of soldiers perished or were wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg. She walked the long blocks to her elementary school located on the bank of the Rappahannock River. En route she passed historic Kenmore with a Civil War cannonball embedded in the brick wall. Old Lafayette School served as a hospital during the Civil War, and floors still wore the stains of blood from the wounded and the dying. No wonder the dreams of the Passenger were stirred by the images she saw on her daily trek to and from school. She ran as fast as small legs would carry her past Kenmore for fear she might spy the ghost of Lafayette riding his horse across the grounds.

Strange, what memories we harbor from childhood. What memories do you have about the place of your birth? Do you long to go back?