But, Friday, there they were -- the seen and the unseen, the heard
and the unheard -- huddled together at the foot of a low, grassy
hill to become foreground and background in a ceremony marking the
preservation of Battery F in the battle of Corinth.

Located in the new Kimberly Heights housing addition, the path of
ground was taken by the Confederates in a single day, Oct. 3, 1862.

The land was about to be developed when it was purchased by The
Conservation Fund for $130,000. The organization has raised $6
million to preserve the various sites and give them to the
Department of Interior for future generations.

Friday's dedication was partly to allow the National Geographic and
its local printing plant to partially repay The Conservation Fund
so it can buy other historic sites.

Corinth Mayor E. S. Bishop, whose grandfather was a slave, presided
over the morning's activities, which drew a crowd of about 100
people, including a sprinkling of Civil War re-enactors in Blue and
Gray uniforms.

With Corinth's 93-piece high school band playing America and
Shiloh, Bishop stood on a trailer decorated with red, white and
blue bunting and said, "I speak for all the people ... we will
always remember that the war was fought to ensure that we were not
a loose federation of states but a United States of America
according to our Constitution. And through that, we have become
one of the greatest nations on Earth."

Gilbert M. Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society said, "We
need the stories of our collective past to tell us who we are
today. But by themselves, stories read in history books or told by
the fireside or in the classroom are not enough. We need to see
the places where our nation's history unfolded."

Thus, it was to help preserve the place -- the earthworks known as
Battery F -- the Geographic Society and Ringier-America, which
prints the monthly magazine here, presented a joint check for
$30,000.

"This is the 15th Civil War battlefield we have acquired in the
last two years," said Patrick Noonan, president of The Conservation Fund.

And that's not all. Grosvenor announced plans next summer to
publish an illustrated history of the Civil War titled The Blue and
the Gray

The book will tell the story of the war from a geographic
perspective and will include a 160-page guide to national
battlefield parks.

Not surprisingly, Grosvenor is a man who argues that geography is
destiny:

"Corinth was certainly destined to be a major Civil War battle
site," he said, "because it was located at the crossroads of the
South's two longest railroads. On that fateful day when the
Confederate army met Union forces here in one of the bloodiest
battles of the war, Corinth's climate, topography and geography all
played a central part in the final outcome."

Its been said, he went on, that "a land without ruins is a land
without memories, and a land without memories is a land without
history."

Earlier, Grosvenor carried his geography message into a fourth-
grade class at East Corinth Elementary School. He taught a lesson
designed to show that it took material and work from dozens of
countries around the world just to produce an ordinary pencil and
eraser.

Although he spent almost an hour with the children and another two
hours with the employees of the printing plant, it was the Civil
War battle site that captured the attention of most Corinthians.

Among them was Hugh Horton, the local historian who worked to get
Battery F on a list of Civil War sites that needed to be saved.

When introduced, Horton told the crowd, "Don't get excited, I won't
be here long. I just want to say it's a great day for Corinth --
late, of course -- but a great day."

And it was.