Your Civil War Memories

These are the Civil War memories submitted through our website, sharing personal accounts of interaction with history, memory, and the continuing presence of the Civil War in our society today.  Our thanks to our contributors.  Revisit this page often, as our archive grows.

A Family Tradition

     Where to begin?, . . . the Civil War has been a continual presence in my life from my earliest childhood memories.

     I remember being astonished as a second-grader to learn that my third great-grandfather fought in the war and to hear the remarkable story of his journey from Appomattox to Gastonburg, Alabama.  After stacking his musket at Appomattox, William Leshore Fluker walked nearly 700 miles home, stopping to steal at least one watermelon from an obliging patch along the way. He later planted the seeds from that melon in his own garden, where they still grow around his ruined homesite deep in the woods of Alabama. 

     I remember family trips to Wilson’s Creek, Pea Ridge, Shiloh, Ft. Donelson, Vicksburg, Manassas, Mosby’s Confederacy, Cold Harbor, Richmond, Appomattox, and Gettysburg.  In fact, as a thirteen year old I was given the choice of visiting Disney World or Virginia’s Civil War battlefields.  Of course I chose Virginia.

     My parents and I visited Lexington, Virginia, and the campus of Washington and Lee.  I remember being amazed to see Lee’s trusty steed Traveler’s old stable doors wide open – the locals believe the ghost of the horse goes for gallops in the dead of night.

     In fact, my Civil War memories are rife with ghosts.  On a visit to Dover, Tennessee, near Ft. Donelson, my parents and I stayed in an old mansion that had once served as a field hospital.  Tormented by scenes from “Gettysburg,” where amputated limbs piled up outside of windows, I was understandably on edge.  A better candidate for a haunted house I couldn’t imagine.  Suddenly, to my surprise, the doorknob in our room began to rattle and turn.  My father threw open the door, ready to kung-fu an intruder, only to confront a long, deserted hallway.

     Such experiences made the Civil War inseparable from my childhood and family memories.  It has become very personal for me.  Indeed, it hardly seems possible that the war ended over a century ago, when it is continually carried on in my family legends and vacation photo albums.

      Amy Laurel Fluker

      Jefferson City, Missouri