The topography of rivers drives human affairs. In Allan Nevins's classic Civil War history, he cites the great river valleys which transcend all political boundaries as a reason why the Union would ultimately stay together. The North named its armies for rivers, as in the Army of the Potomac. The descriptions of Civil War battles deal again and again with rivers: fording them, bridging them, burning bridges, avoiding rivers, seeing them flood, shooting from opposite banks. Grant's great western victories came on or by rivers. Northern Virginia's web of rivers shaped the course of the war.
Upriver the sun
sinks with the temperature,
peaceful here, colder.
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