Where the Battles Weren't

By Adam Smith

Where The Battles Weren’t is a book about ten towns in the western United States who share a name with an important Civil War battle. From Gettysburg, South Dakota to Winchester, Oregon and Petersburg, Alaska to Vicksburg, Arizona, Where The Battles Weren’t takes readers on an exciting ride across the American West.
Where The Battles Weren’t covers these areas during a 17 day road trip in January and February of 2013. These western towns are important because although they share a name with a battle site, they symbolize our country’s resolve to move ahead following the Civil War. Covering everything from a capital city high in the Rocky Mountains to a San Francisco Bay Area industrial city, Where the Battles Weren’t gives readers a broad look at life out West. This book also describes the challenges, rewards, disappointments, and triumphs of travelling to these locations during the winter. Overall, Where The Battles Weren’t is a spirited study of American history and an invigorating narrative on our great modern nation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sakura Publishing
• Release date: Nov 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310354656

Book preview

Where The Battles Weren’t

Adam Smith

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Smashwords Edition

Where The Battles Weren’t

Copyright © 2013 by Adam Smith

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Sakura Publishing in 2013. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Sakura Publishing

PO BOX 1681

Hermitage, PA 16148

www.sakura-publishing.com

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Book cover design by Mary Raudenbush

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SAKURA PUBLISHING

Hermitage, Pennsylvania

USA

This book is dedicated to longtime Evansville Courier columnist Joe Aaron and his wonderful wife Bernice

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the workers at the Ford Motor Company’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant for building my 2007 Mustang GT, the best car I’ve ever owned. I thank the Chevron Corporation for refining my favorite gasoline. I used Rand McNally and DeLorme atlases exclusively on this trip, and I acknowledge the superior cartographers working at those two companies.

I give special thanks to the staff at Turoni’s Pizzery and Brewery in Evansville, Indiana, for always providing me with an excellent dining experience.

I would like to acknowledge RMS Transport in Shawneetown, Illinois, and the entire Willow Lake night shift, for being the best place I ever worked.

Most importantly, I thank my longtime friend, Krystal Roark, for always being there for me, especially on general election night, 2004.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Chapter 1

Gettysburg, South Dakota

There are rock piles in the fields and strong cornstalks stick up through the snow as I drive in the expansive area around Gettysburg. There are drifts in the ditches, but not more than a few inches of snow out in the fields.

Farmers here break out pasture lands into tillable ground because of the high price of grain now. The process of breaking out ground is time consuming and difficult. The soil is rocky and full of boulders you could use to build a replica of Stonehenge! Football-sized and smaller rocks can be removed by hand, but for the larger ones, farmers use a backhoe to dig them up and a Bobcat front-end loader to haul them over to big piles. That is why when you drive around this part of the Great Plains you’ll see piles of rocks in most of the fields.

Most of us from down South, with a farming background, marvel at the strength of the corn stalks up here. In Kentucky, the wind blows down our corn all of the time. Up here, where the people experience much more constant wind, the corn stands tall. Even now, in late January, when all of the corn has long ago been harvested last fall, you can still see the strength of the stalks as the stubs poke through the snow. Showing very little rot, the stalks are still a golden color. I’ve been told the colder temperatures mean there are fewer pests up here and that is why the corn stalks are stronger. Maybe, but sometimes I think the farmers here get corn with better genetics than what we plant down South. Average yields are higher down South, but they sure raise pretty fields of corn up here.

Vacant old wooden houses and out-of-commission windmills are common sights here. Every now and then, I’ll pass an old, wooden, one-room schoolhouse. They were usually placed in section 16 of a township because section 16 was the center and most settlers wanted a centrally located school. If a lake, river, or any other geographical obstacle was in section 16, the township would obviously place the school somewhere else.

The land out here is divided into sections, which are about 640 acres. Roads here are about a mile apart. For example, 341st Avenue is about 14 miles east of 327th Avenue as I drive from east to west towards Gettysburg.

There are many grain bins here, but very few farmers have their own grain leg for filling the bins. Instead, most farmers have large augers, at least 12 inches wide and 91 feet long. Westfield augers, manufactured in Canada, currently seem to be the most popular brand in this area.

I notice some black cattle off to my right. A farmer with a CaseIH tractor is bringing them round bales of hay as I check the weather on my smart phone and notice the temperature is 9° and the wind chill is 7 below zero.

The guys are tough up here and the women probably are too! I think as I drive on by.

A moment like this also makes me happy that my dad never raised any livestock while I was growing up! Raising livestock seems like a great idea-until you have to take care of them in cold weather.

Trees do not grow well up here and any trees you see in the northern Great Plains are well-loved by their caretakers.

Dust rises from behind my car as I drive by a line of wooden electric poles. Gravel roads are exceptionally well-maintained here and I enjoy driving on them. I like the crunchy sound of gravel rocks under my wheels, occasionally knocking up against my undercarriage. The terrain here isn’t flat, it rolls and most fields are fenced in with barbed wire.

The rising sun is shining through thin, translucent clouds. The clouds are flat, not fluffy, and are bluish white in color.

I see more warped and damaged grain bins here than anywhere else. This is because the weather is so unpredictable and destructive. Hail will ruin a crop, so farmers will sometimes harvest their crops before they’re ready, just to avoid an approaching storm. The immature grain, high in moisture content, is then placed in a grain bin. This heavy, wet grain will push the bins apart from the inside out. Even as far back as the Native Americans who were originally here and worked the fields gathering available vegetation, to the present day locals who still farm this land, they’ve all had to battle Mother Nature.

I pass a few of my favorite brand of grain bins manufactured in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, by the Sioux Steel Company. They are very stout and I love their logo: the word SIOUX inside the outline of an arrowhead, with an arrow going through the letters. These are the grain bins I’ll put up if I decide to farm after dad retires.

The road becomes paved as I pass by the Sacred Heart Cemetery at the edge of town. As I head to the main intersection with U.S. Highway 212, I look to my right at the road sign on the eastside of town. The sign gives distances to various nearby towns and the sister city of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1,450 miles away.

I make a left on Highway 212, driving west into town past the city limit sign which lists the population of Gettysburg, the number 1,400 seems to be very significant in this travel between the Gettysburg’s. There are 1,400 monuments, markers and tablets in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, it is 1,450 miles between the two cities and the population of this Gettysburg is 1,352, which is still 1,100 less than the original population of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania before the famed Battle of Gettysburg. And massively lower than the 51,000 casualties from death, injury and disappearance recorded from the battle itself. This three day battle rivaled years-long wars in number of casualties at its completion.

I take a small tour of the town, noting the many mom and pop stores and businesses that line the main streets. To me this speaks volumes of the small farm town America style this community has.

I arrive at the Potter County Courthouse and park on the northwest corner of the lawn and turn off my car. The courthouse itself is made of orange bricks on top of an orange stone base. The inscription on top above the entrance reads: 1910 Potter County 1910. This Gettysburg, like its sister city in Pennsylvania is the county seat and the center of the county activity. Prior to becoming famous, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was also a thriving farm community settled by pioneers striving for a better life in the new frontier. Working towards what is known as the American dream, owning their little piece of something larger and living a life of simplicity.

The courthouse is central in the square, much like the one in Pennsylvania, and is bounded by East Street, Logan Street, Lincoln Street, and Exene Street. The streets are mostly clear with a few patches of ice but not much snow piled up on the sides from the snow plows.

I walk in the cold air up to the Potter County Civil War Veterans Memorial. Gettysburg wasn’t founded until well after the Civil War, but many veterans from back East settled in Potter County helped found this town and their service is honored