| This page is dedicated to my Civil War ancestors. West Virginia was then part of Virginia so some took up arms for the North and others for the South. It is not for us, we the people of a different time, to judge their hearts. God has already taken care of that task. Instead, let us remember the deeds of courage, sacrifice, and devotion to duty, as God gave each the light to see that duty. May each one of these soldiers have found "rest beneath the shade of those trees". 
"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. And reverent men and
women from afar; and 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.
(Oct. 3, 1889, Gettysburg, Pa)
..."
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain |