Oakwood Cemetery, Townshend VT

I ROAM AROUND CEMETERIES LOOKING FOR MYSELF…

…they are the perfect spots for introspection and to ruminate about what’s going on. Not to mention putting an exclamation point on one’s mortality which once anon was driven home to me as I sat in Oakwood Cemetery over in Townshend beside Alexander M. Cushing, born in Newfane in 1823 and died 39 years later on November 24, 1862, after having been shot back in September in a cornfield in Maryland, yes that cornfield, Antietam to be precise.

The battle in The Cornfield at Antietam took something like 1000s of America’s cream of the crop out, in one hour…imagine the grisly horrors, the noise, the fear and dread and ultimately death in a hellfire storm of cordite, hot iron and cold steel…but now here in Oakwood nearly 150 years later, Alexander Cushing rests in peace.

I believe I read or heard that of the New England states Vermont gave up the most men during the Civil War and here was one at my feet. Continue to RIP, Dude. You did the right thing.