By J. Mark Powell 
InsideSources.com

Another Memorial Day is here. For one Monday in May, work is forgotten, replaced by a day at the beach or lake, backyard cookouts, and savoring the unofficial start of the summer season. 

Yet it’s also a time for remembering, for pausing to recall that the freedom which makes this holiday possible came at a steep price. And over the decades, many Vermonters made the ultimate sacrifice in fulfilling that payment. As many of those distant battlefields fade through the mist of time, it is fitting that we pause and stir to memory just how terrible that sacrifice actually was.

That’s why in-the-moment accounts like those found in my new book, “Witness to War: The Story of the Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It” (Stackpole Books 2026), are so helpful in resurrecting long-lost moments of courage, bravery, and honor.

Consider what George Clay (1840–1918), a private in the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters from Vermont, had to say about war. He was writing to his 18-year-old brother Smith Clay at home, who had asked his advice about enlisted. Clay penned these words just three weeks after surviving the battle of Gettysburg.

Camp Near White Sulphur Springs, Virginia

July 28, 1863

You said that Mendel Wood [their neighbor] had offered you $300 to take his place if they draft him. You wanted to know what I thought about it. You said that you should not take his place till you heard from me, and I hope you will not then.

Now, Smith, let me say one thing to you about enlisting. If I was to home, $1,000 could not entice me to enlist again. There is nothing that there is so much hardship in as there is in being a soldier, and if you was out here,

you could not stand it too much and go through what a soldier has to go through and go into battle and be shot as I have seen many a poor fellow.

Now, Smith, you may think that $300 is considerable, but that is no comparison. I would not come out here again if I was at home if Mendel Wood would give me his farm and all there is on it. Three hundred dollars don’t pay for one battle. You may be killed, and you may be wounded and live two or three days and then die. If you had ever seen what I have, you would think that $5,000 might got to the Devil for all you care. I have seen men shot through the stomach and live a long time and then die. And then again, I have seen them shot through the

head and never knew what hit them. 

I’ve read more than 25,000 letters like this over the years from the men and women who lived through the Civil War. Each one is a reminder that, while we plant flags at gravestones on Memorial Day to remember the fallen, under each marker rests a real person, someone just like us, thrown into a terrible moment in America’s history.

The 5,224 men from the Green Mountain State who perished were among the more than 600,000 Americans on both sides who died in that conflict. (Modern research suggests the actual number might possibly have been as high as 750,000, which would have been almost 5% of the male population in the country at the time. The U.S. never experienced bloodshed of that before or since.)

Those service members, as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it at Gettysburg, “gave the last full measure of devotion.” We are free to enjoy this holiday today because of the price they paid.

However, we should also keep in mind Ronald Reagan’s words: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Meaning no automatic assurance today can guarantee our liberty will still be here tomorrow unless we safeguard and maintain it.

So, this Memorial Day, enjoy the time away from work. Have fun at the beach or lake. Savor the taste of the burgers and hot dogs at your neighborhood cookout. Also, be sure to stop for just a moment and remember the legacy of all those who made it possible.

J. Mark Powell is a former TV journalist and diehard history buff. His newest book, “Witness To War: The Story of the Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It” is now available. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.