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The maneuvering
starts before dusk. These armies have met before,
dogging each other across the countryside, fighting not for land and spoils but
pride and ideals. Battle wise yet weary, they will sleep uneasily. The fight
goes to “the fustest with the mostest,” but a little rest won’t hurt either.
At dawn’s light the
skirmish begins. Veterans are joined by raw recruits, many just 13, thrown to
the front, brother against brother. Some must fall, but to the victor goes … a
pizza party.
This May, Bidwell
Jr. High will again host a Civil War reenactment by the Reeanactors of the
American Civil War. The event features Union and Confederate camps, a mock
battle, even “conscriptions” of students to drill with the veterans. It will be
a great live learning experience, one of many sponsored by hundreds of Civil War
groups around the country.
But why the Civil
War? Many junior high kids have living relatives who served in the Gulf War,
Viet Nam, Korea, or World War II, wars that must seem more real. And what of
other great historical conflicts like World War I and the American Revolution?
All worthy of study,
but outside a smattering of Revolutionary War units I know of no one replaying
those campaigns, studying the times so intensely that simply turning pages won’t
do. It won’t be all dress-up and play at Bidwell; volunteers will be in
character, sharing the hopes, dreams, and fears of the ordinary men (and it’s
always them) who fought on both sides. Their feet in this century, the
reenactor’s spirits will drift to another.
As does the
nation’s. The last month has seen several stories with Civil War ties. Though
not the stuff of headlines – one may be soon – you needn’t drill too deep in the
daily paper to find traces of that most American of conflicts.
For instance, plans are now
being made for formal burial of the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L.
Hunley. Under restoration in Charleston, South Carolina, the Hunley became the
first sub to sink a ship in combat on February 17, 1864, then went down with all
hands. They were the Hunley’s third crew, the first two having drowned on
training runs. What led those men to enter that dark, narrow tube, knowing
death was a near certainty? And why a formal interment 137 years later for
warriors of a lost cause?
The London Times
caused a furor in March with a report that Steven Spielberg planned a film
portraying Abraham Lincoln as “a manic depressive racist who nearly lost the
American Civil War.” They have since run a partial correction, but not before
sparking tempers among historians and Lincoln admirers on both sides of the
Atlantic.
On the subject of
insults, workmen renovating a Virginia courthouse last month uncovered this
graffiti, obscured by plaster and decay: “To Jeff. Davis: May he
be set afloat ... (on a) boat without compass or rudder ... eaten by a shark,
the shark by a whale, the whale in the Devil's belly, and the Devil in Hell, the
gates locked ... and, further, may he be put in the northwest corner with a
southeast wind blowing ashes in his eyes for all ETERNITY.” Heck, we only
impeached Clinton.
More serious is the
movement for reparations for slavery, long bubbling in the African American
community but now getting broader attention. There are strong emotions among
descendants of slave and slaveholder alike, though I suspect most Americans are
neither given the small size of the slaveholding class and the wave of
immigration after the war. Still, many are struck by the compensation proposal
in a highly personal way. The same is true of the Confederate flag, to this day
a focus of protests and boycotts.
The Civil War is unique
in our history, stirring generations that never met a veteran or a slave. Hats
off to the Reenactors of the American Civil War and others who give their time
to provide a glimmer of understanding.
© 1997- 2002 Brent Morrison
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