Fredericksburg's fields still speak. I pray that America will listen to freedom's echo

I’ve been walking crossed this large federation for months now. There is thing beauteous astir walking — you announcement details on the road, you person conversations with strangers, and sometimes it’s conscionable breathing the aerial that makes each spot travel alive. As I headed into Fredericksburg, Virginia, I was anxious to locomotion crossed immoderate of America’s astir historical battlefields — until the roadworthy got a full batch harder. A doc diagnosed a pyogenic granuloma — a aesculapian word for a maturation — connected my bottommost aft days of endless walking.It’s bleeding, it’s throbbing, but I cognize the impermanent symptom I consciousness is thing compared to the suffering of the past that has taken spot connected these battlefields.

Fredericksburg was a slaughter pen during the Civil War, wherever Union soldiers charged into Confederate occurrence and paid the eventual price. Spotsylvania, Chancellorsville and the Wilderness — the ungraded present is soaked with the sacrifice of men who believed state was worthy dying for. My bottommost throbs arsenic I walk, and I deliberation of however insignificant it is compared to the symptom and decease endured by those soldiers -- men similar maine – truthful that others could locomotion these aforesaid roads successful hope, not successful chains.

I'm walking not conscionable for myself, but for a procreation of kids who inactive request to judge that accidental is worthy warring for. Many of them person been failed by their schools and parents, and they person nary thought of the past that came earlier them.

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A alien who stopped maine pointed to adjacent fields and told maine that runaway slaves trudged done those paths successful secret, risking everything for freedom. They traveled by night, often barefoot, and depended connected the kindness of strangers.

As I walked done the Fredericksburg Battlefield, I work signs and visited monuments detailing the bravery of those who fought for America. It grounds the world that state is not free. We didn’t person to combat and enactment our lives connected the enactment for state arsenic those who came earlier america did. That is wherefore it is each the much prudent and indispensable that we bash everything successful our powerfulness to sphere freedom. We cannot let state to dice successful our clip -- we indispensable walk it along.

I sat connected a seat to remainder my ft for respective minutes. A antheral named Ben came up to me. He was from South Carolina and asked if I’d ever heard of the Battle of New Market Heights. I hadn’t. He told maine it was a battlefield astir 2 hours eastbound of present — wherever erstwhile slaves, present United States Colored Troops, stormed Confederate fortifications connected September 29, 1864.

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They were portion of a diversionary violative orchestrated by Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler nether the broader absorption of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The purpose was to gully Confederate reinforcements distant from the besieged metropolis of Petersburg and weaken General Robert E. Lee’s defenses astir the Confederate capital.

Ben explained that Butler, a staunch believer successful the capabilities of the Black soldiers, placed these erstwhile slaves astatine the forefront to beryllium their mettle — particularly aft the disastrous Crater battle earlier that summer, wherever Black troops had suffered owed to mediocre White leadership. In a poignant infinitesimal earlier the advance, Butler rode among the regiments and instructed them to complaint with the outcry "Remember Fort Pillow!" — invoking the brutal 1864 massacre of surrendering Black Union soldiers by Confederate forces successful Tennessee. Facing them were astir 8,700 Confederates, including the seasoned Texas Brigade nether Brig. Gen. John Gregg, entrenched on a enactment that had repelled erstwhile Union attacks.

On the time of the battle, astatine 5:30 a.m., they charged uphill done unforgiving terrain into withering artillery and musket occurrence — implicit 200 casualties successful the archetypal minutes. As White officers fell, Black soldiers seized command. They grabbed the regimental colors from the dormant and continued the complaint into the fire. Finally, astatine 8 a.m., the Black troops surged implicit the hill, routing the Confederates and capturing the heights.

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Fourteen Black soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their valor successful this conflict — the astir ever awarded to Blacks successful a azygous engagement, and astir each the medals fixed to Black troops during the full war. Ben paused. He said the show of that bloodied field, of men who had been slaves lone yesterday present dying for freedom, moved the surviving to tears.

I had to ideate it. The spot and religion of these men who were slaves lone yesterday and were consenting to combat to the decease for a state they’d lone conscionable tasted. What higher calling is there? These men fought to bring state to america all.

I’m walking contiguous due to the fact that I’ve seen acold excessively galore who person squandered this gift. I got up and thanked Ben with a agelong hug. He, a stranger, gave maine a gift. I had ne'er heard of these soldiers, and present I americium determined to fto their heroism beryllium a acquisition to america all.

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As I resumed my walk, I forgot astir the symptom successful my heel. All I could deliberation of was what a acquisition state genuinely is.

But this is not the extremity of the communicative — it’s the opening of the fight.

In our time, the conflict for state is not with muskets oregon bayonets, but with ballots, books, and bold faith. The force is not crossed a ridge oregon up a elevation — it’s successful the mirror, successful the complacency that lets schools fail, families fracture, and anticipation slice successful the hearts of our children.

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I volition support walking. One measurement astatine a time. Not due to the fact that the roadworthy is easy, but due to the fact that the origin is just. Because each kid successful each forgotten vicinity deserves to cognize the names of Powhatan Beaty, Christian Fleetwood and Miles James — men who proved that state is not given, it is taken — by courage, by sacrifice, by faith.

Let their triumph connected that elevation go our vow today: We volition not fto state dice connected our watch.

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