Honest question, how many of you really want to experience a battle like that? We aren't talking academic, we're talking the smells of burning flesh and human waste, the sounds of bullets and screaming, the feeling of a battle, and the sights.

Me? I'd love to take part in an early modern Carnivale, or spend some time with Darwin aboard the Beagle, or stop by the first Thanksgiving.

I think you are right. We all too often romanticize battle and the hero persona. I would like to have met Emerson, Walden, and Twain. Those would be some great conversations. Or mostly me just listening in awe and taking notes.

Of Civil War battles, Brice's Crossroads would be my choice. The raw battlefield genius of Bedford Forrest at it's height (which in actuality was an amazingly high percentage of the time) qualifies for inclusion with that of most, maybe all, of the world's great captains.

One of the traits -- there were several -- that contributed to Forrest's status as an absolutely singular figure in that conflict was that his rarely-rivaled talent for war extended beyond the battleground. Never mind that he is reputed not to have had an hour's worth of military training before the war commenced.

N.B. Forrest was an amazing, though terrifying, man. Even to witness him sleeping would be the experience of a lifetime. For me, anyway.

ADD -- I agree with Sapper and others concerning a possible inability to stick the reality. This might even be magnified with Forrest as terror was a weapon he recognized and utilized. But if I were to try, he'd be the one I'd try.

Dr. Watson said:

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Honest question, how many of you really want to experience a battle like that? We aren't talking academic, we're talking the smells of burning flesh and human waste, the sounds of bullets and screaming, the feeling of a battle, and the sights.

Me? I'd love to take part in an early modern Carnivale, or spend some time with Darwin aboard the Beagle, or stop by the first Thanksgiving.

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Warfare my dear Watson.

easttexasaggie04 said:

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I would have liked to have been with Teddy Roosevelt on horseback when the rode through Yosemite Valley the first time. That is my favorite place on earth. Would have loved to have experienced it with him.

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I thought about this one, too. Especially the trip he took through Yosemite with John Muir. I've never been, but going with TR and Muir would've been a helluva trip, I'd bet.

Why not just dial it back to about 10,000 BC? Then you get to see all the cool stuff that was killed off: Mastadons, short faced bears, American Lions, dire wolves, camels, wild horses, sabre tooth tigers, American cheetahs, giant sloths, etc.

The wildlife on this continent that Lewis & Clark saw was a shell of what it was prior to the Native Americans crossing the land bridge. The Great Plains were at least as diverse as their African counterparts. Heck, with modern genetic and cloning, it is likely scientists will be able to reproduce some of these mammals in the next 50 years. Something to think about when people feed you the line of bull that Indians "only took what they needed".

Apache said:

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Why not just dial it back to about 10,000 BC? Then you get to see all the cool stuff that was killed off: Mastadons, short faced bears, American Lions, dire wolves, camels, wild horses, sabre tooth tigers, American cheetahs, giant sloths, etc.

The wildlife on this continent that Lewis & Clark saw was a shell of what it was prior to the Native Americans crossing the land bridge. The Great Plains were at least as diverse as their African counterparts. Heck, with modern genetic and cloning, it is likely scientists will be able to reproduce some of these mammals in the next 50 years. Something to think about when people feed you the line of bull that Indians "only took what they needed".

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It was actually Native Americans who killed off the Mammoth. The last Mammoths were on the islands off the coast of California as late as 11,000 years ago. Mammoth topic is very close to home. The Waco Mammoth site is about 1.5 miles down the road from my office. I personally found one (a female) about 30% intact at my job in the mid 90's.

I would scare kiddos during campfire programs at night when I did my talk about the pleistocene megafauna that lived in the immediate area. It is pretty wild to think that freaking 14 foot mammoths were roaming around my front yard.

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It was actually Native Americans who killed off the Mammoth.

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Yep, that's why I wrote this line:

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Something to think about when people feed you the line of bull that Indians "only took what they needed".

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The last mammoths were actually on a place called Wrangel Island about 2,000 BC. There were mammoths roaming the earth while the Egyptians were building the pyramids.