The Witness Tree

The snow was coming down thicker and faster as Meg took the Taneytown Road exit from Route 15. The storm forecast for later tonight was already here, but Meg had a promise to keep. She drove through the familiar landscape of the Gettysburg battlefield. She had visited here since she was a young child. There had been many trips, and she knew there would be many more.

Meg pulled into the parking lot just as a park ranger stopped at the National Cemetery gate. Meg knew what it meant. The cemetery was closing early because of the snow storm. “Please don’t let me be too late,” she cried out as she grabbed the two roses on her passenger seat and sprinted from the car without her coat.

“Wait, wait. Please, I need just a few minutes.”

“Ma’am, I have to lock the gate. The park is closing before this storm gets worse.”

“Please, it was a promise to my grandmother. I’ve just come from her funeral. Please,” she begged as tears formed in her eyes.

“Where do you need to go?” the ranger asked.

“To the honey locust witness tree. Please.”

“Ok, I’ll go with you. My name is Tim. Go get your coat. I’ll wait.”

As Meg crossed the road to get her coat from the car, she thought off her last visit to the National Cemetery the previous October.

Gettysburg was alive with the colors of autumn. Meg had visited the town and battlefield since she was a child. She hadn’t been there in more than 10 years, but the memories flooded back as she drove the familiar roads. Meg looked at the woman who sat quietly beside her, just a shadow of the person she had been just six months earlier. The cancer had advanced rapidly. Meg knew this was her grandmother’s last visit to the place she loved.

Catherine Hunter and her late husband George were both raised in Gettysburg. Although they moved to nearby Frederick after college, they had always returned many times each year. In the beginning, it was to see their parents and old friends. After their parents had passed and friends had moved away, they were still pulled back to the town and its battlefield by an unseen force. Perhaps it was that force that led both of them to be history teachers.

Meg spent many long days in the town with her grandparents. While her friends’ grandparents took them to the beach, Meg’s brought her to Gettysburg time and time again. Their breakfast at the Lincoln Diner always made the trip worthwhile, even as the allure of the battlefield and soldiers’ stories began to wane as she entered her teens. Even now, 20 years later, just thinking about the Lincoln Diner’s blueberry pancakes brought a smile to Meg’s face. 

On every trip, the first stop on the battlefield was at the 151st Pennsylvania monument on Seminary Ridge. Their ancestor, Charles “Pop” McGill, was a solider in the 151st. Like many of its soldiers, he was a schoolteacher. Gettysburg was the regiment’s first fight on July 1 had been a desperate and deadly one, with regimental casualties totaling 76 percent. Pop was wounded in the fight, but survived.

After the stop at the 151st Pennsylvania, Meg and her grandparents would spend the day on the battlefield, stop in favorite bookstores and have ice cream at Kilwin’s. The day always ended at the National Cemetery. They would walk the curving path to the more than 3,000 graves of Union soldiers who were killed at Gettysburg. George or Catherine would stand beside the Soldiers National Monument at the center of the graves and read Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. 

Afterward, they would take the rear path back toward the gate. Along that path, standing tall among cannon and monuments, was a honey locust tree. It was called a “witness tree,” one of just a handful of trees that were on the field during the July 1863 battle and were still alive. Catherine would rub the tree.

“Thank you, Pop, for reminding us about how life continues despite the darkest challenges and most desperate hours,” she said as she placed two roses beside the tree. Then she’d hug her young granddaughter and the three would leave the cemetery in silence.

Now 30, Meg pushed her grandmother’s wheelchair along the winding path, two roses resting on the dying woman’s lap. The autumn leaves provided a fiery backdrop.  The witness tree stood proudly beside the monuments and the wrought iron fence that separated the National Cemetery from the Evergreen Cemetery that was on the east side of the hill. It had been damaged in severe storms three years earlier, but park service staff had saved it. Its tiny leaves were yellow and brilliant in the sunlight.

“Stop the chair, Meggie, and let me walk from here. It’s just a few more feet.”

“Gran, are you sure that’s what you want to do? I promised mom that I would keep you safe.”

“If your mother cared a lick about me, she would have been here.”

“Gran, you know that’s not true. She loves you, but . . . . “

“She never wanted to come here. She never understood. She never wanted to understand. It was just excuse after excuse from her,” said Catherine with sadness.

“It’s a tree,” replied Meg with exasperation. “I mean, I brought you here because I know it’s important to you, but . . . .“

“There is no but. This tree has been tied to our family for generations. It lived through three of the worst days in American history. It was surrounded by blood, the dead, the dying and those fought and prayed the battle would end. Those men are gone now. The men and women who came after them too. They’re all gone, but this tree is here. Pop McGill saw it for what it was, a living thing tying past and present together.”

Catherine reached into her purse and pulled out two photos. Meg hadn’t seen them since she was a child. One was of her own grandparents, Michael McGill in his lieutenant’s uniform and her mom, Abby, in her wedding dress. The tree stood behind them as they kissed.  Two roses from Abby’s bouquet were at the base of the tree. In the second, much older image, was Pop McGill and his friend, John Logan. They were wearing their old 151st Pennsylvania uniforms. They were two of regiment’s soldiers who had survived the hellish fight on July 1 when so many of their friends had died. Even though they lived in nearby Reading, neither had returned to Gettysburg until 1889 when the regiment’s monument was dedicated. They leaned against the tree, Pop’s cane resting against the iron fence behind them.

“It connects us to our past. It reminds us that we can manage our darkest hours and survive. It’s proof that life goes on,” Catherine said as she held the images to her chest.

With great effort, Catherine stood up and took slow, careful steps toward the tree. She dropped the roses beside the tree and turned to Meg.

“Soon, I will be the past. I will be the last connection to this place unless you will continue it. Don’t let it end now after so many years. Promise me, Meggie.”

“Ok Gran, I will.”

“Don’t just say that to pacify me. Don’t let it end. Promise me,” Catherine whispered through tears.

“I’ll do it,” said Meg. “I promise you that I will do it.”

Catherine smiled through her tears and turned back to face the tree and fence behind it. “Did you know that Daddy proposed to Mama right there. Just there on the other side of the fence. Like Granny, she brought flowers from her bouquet here too.”

“Who proposes in a cemetery?” Meg laughed.

“It was a different time,” Catherine replied as she settled again in her wheelchair.    

On New Year’s Eve, 1941, Ed Warner walked through the Evergreen Cemetery. The gate to the adjacent National Cemetery was locked, but he knew where Margaret McGill would be. She stood at the iron fence that separated the two cemeteries looking at the locust tree standing majestically on the other side.

It was the holidays, but there was no joy in her heart. Her younger brother, Doug, was a petty officer third class on the U.S.S. West Virginia. The two had been inseparable from the moment her father had placed her new little brother in her arms.  Doug had been so excited when he learned that he would be stationed in Hawaii. The world went dark the moment she and her parents hear about the attack on Pearl Harbor. It stopped when the learned that Michael had not survived.

“Margaret, c’mon. It’s cold. Let me take you home.”

She shuddered at the sound of his voice and reached through the fence to touch the tree. 

“Margaret, I have to enlist. We were attacked. I have to do it for Doug and the other boys. I can’t just stay here when everyone else is enlisting.”

The new tears burned her eyes as Ed pulled her arm back through the fence and turned her around to face him. As she stepped toward him, Ed wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

“My God, you’re so cold. How long have you been standing out here?”

“About an hour. Dad brought us here all the time. Said it was where he decided to stay in Gettysburg and marry Mama when he got out of the Army. He said he first laid eyes on her as he helped guide an old Renault tank through town. Everyone was staring at that new war machine because they’d never seen anything like it. All he could stare at was Mama standing on the sidewalk in a pretty blue dress.”

“Gettysburg’s other war. No one knows about Gettysburg and the World War except for soldiers like your dad who were stationed here,” said Ed as he stroked Margaret’s hair.

“Daddy wanted to be where the fighting was.  His West Point classmates were in France and Belgium while he was here teaching soldiers how to drive tanks. Said he would have done anything to get out of here, but then he saw Mom and knew he was meant to stay here.”

Margaret raised her head and looked into Ed’s eyes. “Maybe that’s something you can do. You can stay here and teach other soldiers. The Army needs men here too. You don’t have to be where the fighting is.”

“I’m going to have to go, Margaret. You know that.” 

He stroked her hair again and she turned away. “But I promise you that when it’s over, I will be right back here, and we’re gonna get married and raise kids and be together forever.”

She looked at him quizzically as he began to smile. “Eddie, did you just propose to me?”

“I think I did,” Ed laughed.

“You’re proposing to me in a cemetery?” she said as she smacked his arm.

“No, I’m proposing to you at Pop McGill’s tree. Look at it. It survived the battle here. It survived all those soldiers at Camp Colt in the World War. It will survive this war too, and so will we. We’ll get through this and then spend our lives together.”

Tears swelled in Margaret’s eyes as she nodded yes and pulled Ed tightly to her. “I don’t want to let go.”

“Well, you have to if you want me to put this ring on your finger,” he laughed as he pulled the small ring from his coat pocket and slid it onto her finger. “It’s not much. I’ll get you a better one after all this is over,” Ed said as he kissed her.

“I don’t need a better ring.  I just need you,” Margaret answered.

“Hear that tree? She doesn’t want a bigger ring. She just wants me to get through this fight in one piece.  You helped her daddy and Pop McGill. Take care of me too,” Eddie said, patting the tree trunk.

“C’mon. Let’s get you home and get you warm again. I want to spend every minute I can with you before I have to leave.”

“Let’s go. We’ll show Mom and Dad the ring, then let’s go to the Lincoln Diner for fries and cokes,” Elsa said as she took his hand.

“You know, how do we know your dad is even visiting the right tree?”

“That picture he has of Pop. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

Lieutenant Michael McGill sat in the mess hall at the newly christened Camp Colt eating eggs and drinking lukewarm coffee. The four brigades of infantry soldiers had been leaving Gettysburg on trains for the last week. The new recruits would be here soon. At Camp Colt, they were going to learn how to drive and fight in tanks, but there weren’t any tanks in Gettysburg. The United States had entered the war in its third year. It was well behind the other countries in production of both materials and soldiers. Both England and France had promised to send tanks, but none had arrived.  Captain Einsenhower would have to figure out something.

“Hey. There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. A couple of French Renaults are supposed to arrive today,” said Lt. Will Carpenter as he rushed over to his friend. Will and Michael had been friends since their plebe year at West Point. They were stationed separately after graduation in 2015, but the new war brought them back together.

“Can’t believe that we’re going to be driving tanks over some of the most important parts of this Gettysburg battlefield. We’re right here where Pickett’s Charge happened,” said Michael as he slurped the last of his coffee.

“That’s the old war. We need to worry about this one.”

“My grandpop would be mad as hell if he saw what we’re doing to his battlefield. He got wounded here then spent two days leaning up against some tree on Cemetery Hill.”

The door banged open as a staff sergeant walked in with a large envelope. “Lieutenant McGill, big letter for you.”

Michael took the envelope and saw that it was from his grandmother. He opened it and found a letter from her, an old news story and a photograph of his grandfather leaning against a tree with another Civil War veteran.

“Whatcha’ got?” Will asked.

“She sent me a news story about Pop. It was written when he and the rest of the 151st came here in 1889 for the dedication of their monument. It’s over on Seminary Ridge on the other side of town. When they visited the soldiers’ cemetery, Pop went to this tree and swore up and down that it was the tree where his pal John had propped him up after he was wounded.”

“All those trees, and he thinks he found the right tree 25 years later?”

“Said in the newspaper it was the right one because it was the only honey locust tree on that part of the hill. I guess John swore it was the right tree too.” He punched his friend’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s go find it.”

“What?”

“It’s in the National Cemetery up against the iron fence, see?” Michael answered waiving the photograph. “C’mon. We’ve got a few hours. Let’s go.”

The two sprinted from the mess hall to the cemetery gate.  They followed the path to the rear of the cemetery and walked past the monuments and cannon that lined walkway. 

“Hey look. There it is,” said Michael pointing at the tree ahead of them.

“Do you even know what a honey locust tree is?”

“No, it’s the tree. Look at it and look at the picture.”

“I guess so,” Will said shrugging. “C’mon, let’s go back.”

“You go ahead. I want to stay.”

Michael sat down beside the tree and pulled the newspaper article out of the envelope and read it again, slower this time. His grandfather recounted his experience over those days long past.

“We were held up by the Seminary for most of the afternoon, watching the fight around us. The Rebs outflanked the line in front of us, and we were ordered in. It was a hot fight. So many dead and wounded around us  We poured it on, but the line began to break. The troops beside us fell back. We had to retreat.”

“As I turned, a bullet grazed my hip. The pain was awful, and I was bleeding. I could not take a step. I told John Logan and the others to just leave me, but they refused. They picked me up and carried me through the town. Bullets and soldiers were everywhere. The entire Union Army was falling back. It was a terrible fight through those streets.”

“We reached the hill on the other side of town. I refused to go to the hospital. I stayed with my regiment. John propped me up beside this tree, and there I sat for two days. I knew it was a honey locust because we had them at home. Here we are 25 years later. This tree is still here, and so am I. It ties me to my past and those three horrible days, but look. It’s proof that life goes on even in the darkest hours.”  

Meg walked in the deepening snow to the Witness Tree. She placed the two roses from her grandmother’s casket arrangement against its trunk.

“Gran, I won’t forget. Here’s to the past and to the future.”

She pulled the old photograph of Pop McGill from her coat pocket. 

“What have you got there?” asked the ranger. “On my God.”

“What?”

“That’s John Logan and Pop McGill. My name’s Tim Logan. John’s my ancestor. I have that photo.”

“Pop McGill is mine,” said Meg as her eyes met Tim’s.

Maybe Pop's tree does show the light after the darkness.