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Editorial Comments
Product Description:
"This compelling memoir is by turns charming and chilling. As the artist-author restores a forty-acre farm field and builds a house in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, making the mistakes of a city slicker but somehow bumbling through to success, he also uncovers the story of the Battle of Cross Keys that was fought on his land 125 years earlier. Alternating chapters focus contrapuntally on the 1980s and 1860s, keeping the reader glued to these fascinating pages." -- James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom
A finalist for the 1993 National Book Award, Battlefield recounts Peter Svenson's experiences building a farmhouse on a forty-acre site near Harrisonburg, Virginia, which 125 years before had been the site of a Civil War battle: the 1862 Battle of Cross Keys, in which Confederate forces stopped a Union advance and provided Stonewall Jackson with an important victory in his guerrilla campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Svenson intertwines a detailed description of the battle based on field reports, dispatches, letters, and other firsthand accounts with lively anecdotes about attempting to farm his land using traditional methods while staving off mini-mall developers. He describes the learning process of fixing up an old property, trying to grow hay on long-neglected farmland, and digging a pond. He unearths spent cartridges and artillery shells, hears from neighbors who relate oft-told tales of the Confederacy's victory, pursues minute details of the battle in archives and at often contentious meetings of the local historical society, and meditates on how best to commemorate the men who fell in battle on his forty acres. Exploring the intimate connections between landscape and history, Battlefield offers an engaging, reverent, and highly personal view of the Civil War and its ongoing legacy.
Amazon.com Review: Peter Svenson, a successful artist, bought the field of his dreams in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley and planned to build a home there for his family. But he soon discovered that a Civil War military engagement, the Battle of Cross Keys, was fought on the very soil he wanted to till. Svenson's story of his own moral and physical struggles is masterfully interspersed with the reports, letters and history of the battle, sweeping the reader into the drama of the past and Svenson's reverence for both history and the land.
Dreans This book is about dreams and making them come true. If you are a Civil War person, it is about owning a piece of a small but important battlefield from the war. It is about keeping that part of the field in a state consistent with history. If you are trapped in a Dilbert world and dream of being a gentleman farmer, this is about making that dream come true. It is about crops of hay, fields and restoring equipment. In each case, this is a loving enjoyable book about dreams. The author did an excellent job creating his dreams and their reality on the battlefield of Cross Keys in Virginia. His ability to communicate feelings and moods gives the reader a real understanding of his feelings. There is a strong Civil War component to this book but it is NOT a battle history of Cross Keys. You will pick up some history on how Hallowed Ground has been treated since 1865 but this is not about history but dreams. This is a wonderful book for anyone with dreams!
Interesting attempt that doesn't quite gel Like other reviewers, I was attracted not only by this book's subject by also by its award nominations and glowing reviews ("a literary accomplishment" ... "vivid" ... "powerful" ... "a gem"). And while I found the author's blend of history and memoir an interesting approach, the book is finally unsatisfying. It certainly doesn't live up to the hyperbolic reviews.
As someone with an interest in Virginia and the Shenandoah Campaign as well as (to a small degree) farming and rural issues, I'd hoped "Battlefield" would be some combination of, say, Gene Logsdon and William C. Davis. Unfortunately, it's not quite either, and certainly not both. While it may be possible to say Peter Svenson has written the definitive history of the battle of Cross Keys, that's more a reflection on the lack of alternatives. Certainly his discussion of the battle is comprehensive, with extensive quotations from period journals and participants' reports and diaries. The thinner side is Svenson's chronicle of his own farming experiences. Apart from some interesting reflections on old barns, the village's run-down former tavern, and one or two other sections, I never really got the sense that we were experiencing Svenson's farming life on much more than a surface level. We learn a lot about cleaning and restoring old farm equipment, but far less about any sort of personal relationship with the land, or what being a landholder means to the author. When he declares at the end that he will never throw away the battlefield of which he has custody, the statement is almost surprising in its emotion.
The history of the battle is a constant presence in the farm's modern story, and so the two halves of the narrative do fit together to some extent. But while the author makes a good attempt, the blend ultimately never quite "sets."
Overblown. Disappointing. I had had this book on my bookshelf for the past few years and finally decided to read it last week. Given the awards it had received, I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, I found it very uneven. The book is disjointed, with the accounts of the battle interspersed with an account of the author trying to be a gentleman farmer. I don't think he pulled it off however, although the idea of the book is an interesting one. There is not enough information to satisfy the Civil War buff, nor is there enough development about the author's own story to have made me care that much about his travails. It is not a bad book, but only a mediocre one. I would not recommend it.
Not Just Good History, Great Writing, Too The battle at Cross Keys, Virginia is not one of the more renowned conflicts of the Civil War. My family had been flummoxed by the lack of information when researching my great-great grandfather's teenage career as a soldier in the 39th New York regiment that fought there. Enter Peter Svenson to save the day, pulling the experience of the battle out of oblivion into an extraordinary narrative. A landscape artist, he had purchased a 40-acre rhomboid shaped tract on which to build a home and studio and to farm hay. He belatedly discovered the land to be the actual battlefield. Turning to original source material, including personal letters, memoirs and formal military reports, he summons a very detailed account of the events and environment of 8 June 1862. Not only does the battle become an important lens through which to critically assess the strategies of Fremont (North) and Jackson (South) and the fortunes of each side in the early part of the war, the account is highly revealing of the experience of the common soldier. Though there were thousands out there that day (far more Union than Confederate, though the North lost this one), Svenson takes pains to identify the regiments and their locations, and what happened to them. I now know where my ancestor most likely fell and the horror he endured for hours until he was picked up and taken to the "hospital," a store that had been appropriated for a surgery. I am astounded that he made it out of there with his limbs intact, that he survived the everpresent danger of disease Svenson describes. Please know there is more to Svenson's book than the battle history, however: he intersperses the history with accounts of life on the land in the late 20th century. In doing so, he shows how deeply connected the present is to a very traumatic part of our national past. It's a thoughtful book, made all the more enjoyable by the author's strong, pleasant voice. BATTLEFIELD was nominated for a National Book Award when it debuted; while it ultimately did not win, it is tops in my estimation.
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