Good Friday Morning -
The history of this place. So much history in this place. We’ve had a winter trying to highlight some of those things, and the interactions of people with the land of West Virginia. I make the joke that she guards her history well. Things that are abandoned here tend to disappear quickly. Over the last few years, we’ve “found” (new to us) towns and industrial centers that were abandoned less than 100 years ago - Nuttallburg, Kaymoor, Hammond. We’ve “found” amusement parks - totally gone now - that were hosting thousands of visitors a little over 100 years ago.
Today’s post about a battlefield that we “found” - far off the beaten path and hard to find any details on in the history books. This photo is of fortifications - gun emplacements, best we can tell, from the Battle of Allegheny Mountain, December 1861. On a cold winter day nearly 160 years ago roughly 3,000 men fought, fired, and died all around this place. Today, you would be hard pressed to know - unlike many of the battlefields over in Maryland or Pennsylvania, there was one sign for this place. In the end, it wasn’t only war that led this place to be abandoned, it was the rough winter and cold conditions - high in the Appalachian mountains.
Conditions this day were ghostly - hard wind, thick fog, swirling around the place and through these hawthorn trees. We had no idea what this place was at the time - but it felt old and hard -made by man, long ago, and left to the elements.
Hope folks have a great weekend. The warming weather is making us antsy to get back out there.
On The Battlement - West Virginia