Conception: A Personal History

November 19 is Remembrance Day in Gettysburg, the day that Lincoln dedicated part of the battlefield as a cemetery for the Civil War dead in 1863. That year in July the dead lay on the battlefield, on the farmers' fields planted with crops and in the summer-green woods where they had taken positions behind boulders and tree trunks. Some lay covered with dirt, and others just lay bare to the weather. When land for a cemetery was set aside, the townspeople moved the dead to proper graves.

As a citizen of Gettysburg more than a century later, I carry no responsibilities as burdensome as moving thousands of dead bodies for burial. My children and I climb the steep trail of Round Top, scaling the hill's crowning boulders and dropping down behind them, pushing leaves off of low plaques to learn which soldiers fought where. We acquaint ourselves with the town's history—I was impressed to hear that the main building on the Gettysburg College campus had been a Civil War hospital. Later I realized that nearly every building standing in 1863 had been, of necessity, a hospital, too. A colleague who commuted here from Maryland once asked, "How can you live in that town? You're living on the most blood-soaked piece of ground in America." But this place doesn't feel blood-soaked. The former hospital buildings are bed-and-breakfasts, or dormitories, or offices. The battlefields roll out like velvet, their hems bordered with silent cannons and marble monuments. Although there was so much death, to my mind it's safely tucked into the past.

Along the sidewalks in the tourist end of town, the Ghostwalk guides would beg to differ. A woman in a hoopskirt holds up an oil lantern as tourists gather in the fall darkness, shivering in their jackets. Swinging by in the car to pick up my daughter from a football game or dance, I see them heading up the hill in a mob to summon up the local ghosts. As the Ghosts of Gettysburg Web site says of the men killed here, "Their presence on earth was silenced forever by death. Or maybe not . . ."

I had ghosts of my own.

On November 19 there is a wreath-laying ceremony at the cemetery. I prefer to visit on Memorial Day, when the town's children march in a parade to lay garden flowers on the soldiers' graves. That's the sort of charm a small town has. One is expected, of course, to have garden flowers. Thanks to the previous homeowners' planting of perennials, we can usually manage a straggly bunch. And Captain Trickey, who owned our house before the previous owners, had planted climbing roses on the south side of the garage that persist in blooming small scarlet flowers, despite our neglect.

My husband and I didn't attend the wreath-laying ceremony in 2002, thus missing a recitation of the famous address: "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty . . ." Though the opening words have been heard so often that their literal meaning can glide right by, it is odd to think that in the nineteenth century Americans commonly marked time from 1776—thus a mortgage document in my family is dated the "Eighty-Third year of the Sovereignty and Independence of the United States of America," or 1859. As a country, we were tethered to a different point of origin.

My husband and I, busy with work and children, did not often attend community events, and on this night we stayed home as usual and put our two children to bed. Then we sat outside on the breezeway. As of the next weekend we would be thrust into the extended family arena—Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and the dedication of a memorial boulder. Sometimes before these occasions we went a little crazy—sat out on the breezeway in plastic Adirondack chairs, drank too much wine, and smoked a few cigarettes. We used to smoke. We didn't anymore. We used to drink too much almost routinely, playing poker with...