- Opening and Closing the Gate
- Do You Know What Your Kids Are Watching?
- How do you create a Christ-centered home?
- His Role and its Duties
- Men God Wants
- The Role of Friendship in Marriage
- Fathers who interact with children plant life-changing seeds
- Fatherhood isn't for Sissies
- How to Catch a Redhead!
- No Quantity, No Quality
Rites of Passage for Your Son
David Wills faced a monumental task. Governor Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania appointed him to oversee the burial of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg. In addition, the 32-year-old attorney was to plan a dedication ceremony for this pivotal Civil War battle.
The task was daunting. Following the July 1863 conflict, Gettysburg had taken on the appearance — and the stench — of an open-air mortuary. Thousands of human bodies lay scattered over the fields and hills, decaying in the heat. Others were buried but, as Willis reported to Governor Curtin, "in many instances arms and legs and sometimes heads protrude, and my attention had been directed to several places where the hogs were actually rooting out the bodies and devouring them."> Human scavengers picked at the exposed bodies for anything of value. Meanwhile, grieving relatives scoured the fields, searching for fathers and sons. Gettysburg had become a "carnival of carnage." Like a scene from Dante's Inferno, the grisly features of death were pervasive, revolting, visceral.
Something had to be done. David Wills did it. But at every turn, he was like a man stumbling in the dark.
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