Moores Creek Battlefield sits an hour from my hometown and was the first location to feel as steeped in grief and trauma as my childhood. In its woods, I found the same invisible violence that marked my youth, and in battlefield homes I saw familiar scenes of quiet sadness. Backyard Battlefields investigates the way trees absorb and represent the violence they witness, disclosing moments of pain, destruction, and isolation among solitary forms, gripping roots, and hollow, wooden interiors. In each of their material states—living, dead, roots, planks, furniture, leaves—these trees, like me, hold a secret sorrow that can only come from the history they survived.