commemorating a tragedy

everybody is all about the civil war sesquicentennial and the battle of atlanta and re-enactments and what not, with way too little reflection on why it was fought: it was a war over human slavery, about which there can be no argument, only rationalization; and what it cost the nation: 650,000 dead on both sides, which was more than were lost in all of the country's wars from the revolution through korea, including both world wars, hundreds of thousands more mangled and shell-shocked, and great swaths of the south left in ruins --- nevermind the personal tragedies repeated over and over --- john and sarah medlock, who claimed eleven slaves in 1860, had a farm near where grace methodist church is now located --- the spring they used was just down the hill and is still active, although the branch it produced is now in a culvert --- she wrote her sister of their experience when the civil war came to their doorstep:

We left home in July ‘64. We left our furniture. We took a few chairs and bedding, the best or the most of our clothes--our cattle we sold to the government except three cows and calves. We have one cow and calf is all the stock except 2 mules.  We lost our hogs and horses. We refugeed to Washington County, stayed there until November ‘65. The fighting was mostly from Peachtree Road around to Decatur. Our houses burned, our timber cut down on the home lot, our shade trees--pretty well all of our fruit trees.  There has been thousands of pounds of lead picked up on our land. People supported their family picking up lead. They got 50 cents a pound before the surrender. The bombshells is plenty, many with the load in them.

the war cost them a lot personally, including their oldest son who was wounded at malvern hill in 1862 and nearly blinded at chickamauga before being discharged and sent home, where he died in february of the medlocks' annus horribilis, 1864 ---

john and sara medlock left it to their surviving son to resurrect the old farm after the war and died there in 1882 and 1883 respectively --- they did not stay long in the family cemetery at what is now monroe drive and st. charles avenue, however, being dis-interred and moved to the decatur cemetery in 1890 when their heirs sold just seven acres of the old farm for $20,000 ---