Civil War an emotional topic – 150 years later
Sesquicentennial: One-time war-torn nation still scarred by battles
CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN; The Associated Press | • Published April 03, 2011
A hush fell over the crowd filling the elegant hall in downtown Richmond, Va. The vote was about to be announced, and a young staffer of the Museum of the Confederacy balanced his laptop across his knees, poised to get out the news as soon as it was official.
Who would be chosen “Person of the Year, 1861”?
Five historians had made impassioned nominations, and the audience would now decide.
Most anywhere else, the choice would be obvious. Who but Abraham Lincoln? But this was a vote in the capital of the rebellion that Lincoln put down, sponsored by a museum dedicated to his adversary. How would Lincoln and his war be remembered in this place, in our time?
For the next four years, we will mark the sesquicentennial at scores of crossroads whose names have become a bitter historical shorthand: Fort Sumter, which launched the war on April 12, 1861, and later Antietam, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and so many others, all the way to Appomattox.
We’ll reflect on more than 600,000 combatants who died, we’ll debate the causes, we’ll talk about slavery’s legacy.
What does today’s anniversary tell us?
In search of answers, an Associated Press reporter embarked on a tour through one scarred swath of the fighting grounds – from Manassas, Va., where the war’s harsh terms first became clear, to ruins still standing along Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s fiery march through Georgia, which put the outcome beyond doubt.
Conversations along the way – with scholars, regular folks, Southerners, Northerners, blacks, whites – suggest we’ve matured about the war. It’s a commemoration, not a celebration, this time. What we’re recollecting now is the Civil War and emancipation, many people say. Yes, there have been secession balls right out of “Gone with the Wind,” but the viewpoint of the 4 million enslaved Americans is part of every serious observance.
And one more conclusion: This fight isn’t really past. Even after 150 years, it holds us still.
AN EARLY AWAKENING
Clotted interstates carry you to Manassas, but it’s a surprisingly quick run from the heart of Washington, D.C.
In July 1861 – just weeks after the Confederates took Fort Sumter, and Lincoln responded with a call for 75,000 volunteers – Manassas would be the first real test of the opposing armies.
Some spectators ventured out from the capital for a look and a picnic on what began as a fine day, expecting the rebels to be quickly dispatched. Instead, they witnessed what became a Confederate rout. “Turn back!” cried Union soldiers in full flight. “We are whipped!”
This war, it suddenly became clear, would be deadly earnest.
And at Manassas today, it becomes clear that people still care. Tens of thousands are expected in July for commemorative events.
A GRADUAL CHANGE
We move southward into North Carolina, where many battle sites attest to the war’s harsh legacy.
Another kind of memorial is found off Exit 177 from Interstate 85: Stagville, a restored plantation, where 900 slaves once worked. Some of its land today holds high-tech corporate parks.
“When we met, our very first meeting, we met at Stagville,” said professor Freddie Parker, referring to the state’s Civil War sesquicentennial commission, of which he is a member. He was speaking in his office in the history department at North Carolina Central University, a historically black school nearby in Durham.
Besides his Ph.D., Parker brought to the commission his personal history, including enslaved ancestors. He told of how the commission determined to offer “a balanced commemoration,” recognizing all viewpoints. When staff members created a website, groups of Confederate descendants objected that their side was underrepresented, which led to more discussion, some of it heated.
“I remember ... an older individual, every time something came up about the South, the North, he put it out there: ‘The War of Aggression.’ And everybody knew his position.”
But as the meetings continued, and members listened to each other’s side of things, the man began to join with those pushing, for instance, for an official state memorial to black struggles, too.
And how does Parker process this?
“That people are continuing to evolve. People are not static, stagnant beings,” he said.
RUIN AND RENEWAL
From near Chattanooga, the Union army took aim at the rail and commercial hub of Atlanta, which Sherman would set alight in 1864.
Firsthand signs of actual destruction are rare now – but outside of Atlanta, you come to Sweetwater Creek and what remains of a five-story textile mill, which supplied cloth for Confederate forces. In July 1864, Sherman’s troops burned the mill. Today, wind whispers through the forlorn brick ruins.
Ruin and renewal: If that’s a theme of any reflection on the Civil War, then Atlanta manifests it as well as anywhere.
After Sherman’s “march to the sea,” after Reconstruction, after Jim Crow and the tragedies and triumphs of the civil rights movement, the burned city grew into an economic powerhouse and, among other things, a prime job destination nowadays for black college graduates.
‘IT’S OVER’
Our trip through the war must end by looping back – to Appomattox, which we passed en route south and which was where, for practical purposes, the Civil War ended.
The surrender documents were signed in a handsome porticoed house, which was disassembled after the war. Rebuilding was delayed, and much of the original material rotted away. The foundation and some bricks were reused, but the painstakingly restored structure is something new, perhaps a bit like the nation that was restored here.
“Appomattox to me is not the end of something,” said historian Robertson in an interview. “It’s the beginning of modern America.”
Now 80, Robertson was executive director of the national Civil War centennial commission 50 years ago and he’s a member of Virginia’s sesquicentennial commission now.
“Almost three-quarters of a million men died to give us the nation we have today.”
On the front steps of the rebuilt McLean House, visitors paused to reflect.
David Cummings stood with his friend, Michael Overcash, at the end of a trip following the stages of Lee’s last retreat, 26 stops in all. Both had Confederate ancestors.
“This is where the healing had to begin, right here,” Cummings said.
He mused about the outcome: “Homes destroyed, lives destroyed ... I don’t think you’re going to get rid of bigotry. I think we have a long way to go. And I think our country is still healing.
“But right here they said, ‘It’s over.’”
Read more: theolympian.com |
