View single post by 9Bama
 Posted: Sun Mar 25th, 2012 05:20 pm
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9Bama
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Mana: 
 I had the opportunity a few years ago to listen to Stacey Allen discuss the battle and his conclusions on the focal points. One of the things I came away with is his view of the Hornet's nest and it is his very considered opinion that the importance of the hornet's nest as a pivotal pointof the battle is largely myth. One of the things he looks at when studying the battle is the location of burial trenches. Grant, after the battle ordered that the dead be "buried where they lay" and so there are a number of burial places around the battlefield, both Union and Confederate where the dead were buried (temporarily for union soldiers, permanently for Confederate). His view is that the lack of burial trenches in the vacinity of the Hornet's nest indicates that the severity of fighting as reported for decades, did not occur. That is not to say that there was not a fight, but that it did not result in the severe loss of life that the myths would indicate.