Joseph’s Spring Day — March 25, 1791

On a beautiful spring day it’s hard to believe that our farm is a graveyard. Just on the other side of New Garden Road more than sixty British soldiers are buried in the clay underneath the corn we just planted. They’ve been there for ten years, since March of 1781. There’s no marker, and no names. The ground just looks a little different, and the stalks grow a few inches taller. Sometimes my big brother John hides in the corn until my sister Elizabeth walks past, and then he grabs her leg and wails like he’s a ghost. I’ve never seen one myself. There is not a lot of time for playing during the spring. It seems like everything we have needs to be tightened, sharpened, cleaned or mended somehow. Plus, we had to prepare and plant the fields, cut back brush and repair our fences. But sometimes when I get my work done, I walk around the battlefield and think about how it must have been. I stand behind the split rail fence and imagine that each cornstalk is a British soldier. I run through the woods and pretend that Bloody Tarleton’s horse is just about to catch me before I dive behind a fallen tree.  Ten years ago the Battle of Guilford Courthouse started right here on our farm. My mom took us a few miles away, to a friend’s house, when she heard the British were coming. My dad went up to the courthouse and helped prepare for the fighting. He says nearly two thousand British soldiers marched onto our property, and formed into ranks right across our fields, while cannon shot rained down from the sky and tore holes in the ground around them. But I was two years old when the battle happened, so I don’t remember a thing.
At first glance, you would never know that more than six thousand people fought here
with muskets, rifles, swords, and cannons. People were shot and stabbed and beaten and
trampled and many of them died right here in our fields, and in and around our house. But when you look closely the proof is everywhere. The woods are full of musket balls and cartridge boxes, buttons and even a sword or two. Sometimes when it rains really hard the water will wash off a skeleton in the ground. I wonder how many are still out there just beneath the surface, and I wonder who they were. Anytime I wish I could have fought in the battle, I think about marching across an open field or standing behind our split rail fence, and then I think about the corn stalks that are just a little
taller. And I can see it’s not just me shooting at the British: they shoot back, and sometimes they hit you. I could have ended up buried in somebody’s garden or have been left in thewoods to die. That doesn’t sound so great. I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever have to fight in a battle. I guess no one does until the cannons start booming and the musket balls start whizzing by and you figure out that people are trying to kill you. But the carved oak and hickory sticks we use for muskets aren’t loaded, so I think its safe for now. Wait. I hear hoof beats in the distance, or maybe it’s just John coming to get me.Naw, it’s definitely hoof beats. I’d better run.