This past weekend had many exciting events involved in it. The movies on Friday night and virtual tours on Saturday afternoon were extremely interesting and fun to be part of. However, I found the most interesting aspect of the weekend was the lecture by David Blight. Not because it was the last thing on the list and then I was finally free to enjoy my Saturday night but because he really got me thinking about this war and the reasons we remember it. He posed some great questions that I have been thinking about since I left ATS that night. The biggest question I still ponder is “Why do we remember and celebrate such a terrible event in our history?” After thinking long and hard about it during the lecture and listening to the possible answers he offered I cam up with a few answers of my own. The first answer is because it was a war of independence in a sense and had flashbacks to the Revolutionary War. One group of people trying to free themselves from a ruler who they did not like and a government they could not stand. The second answer I came up with was it was terrible and so devastating we have no choice but to remember it and celebrate/remember everything that occurred during it. For example the freeing of an oppressed people, the fighting that pitted neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother, and finally how small towns and unknown people and soldiers have a story to tell now for generations if it wasn’t for this war.
The second question he posed to the audience was “What is your oracle?” What makes us think about the war and where do we get our thoughts about it from? My answer is as follows. I have two places that I get my memory on this war from. The first is Gettysburg National Park. Every time I go here the feeling of emotion sweeps over me. I stare out over the vast ground that 147 years ago was covered with bodies, horses, weapons, and had the sounds of screaming, moaning, gun shots, and explosions. When I stand at the marker behind the wall at the center of the Union Line where General Lewis Armistead fell during Pickett’s Charge. The story of him and his friend General Hancock was also wounded on the same day but would survive the war. Both men wanting to see each other one more time but never getting the chance. The other place I get my oracle from is opening the book General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s most Controversial Soldier. This book is important to me because as I read it I become more entranced with the general and his role in the war and what became of his legacy after the war. It brings in the question that was also asked “What was Justice?” Longstreet certainly received no justice from the southern people. He certainly may have criticized Lee but he served his country of the CSA with honor and courageously during the war.
It’s thoughts like these that make people remember this war and the authors who write books on it getting people to read about it. This war will forever be remembered by American people. Something so terrible is also something so great.