reconciliation – "I of my own knowledge…"

So You Think Your Life Was Wasted — Part Three (8)

This is a continuation of the very productive sessions I had one day in March, four years ago. This particular conversation took place at first with Claude Bowers, whose book The Tragic Era dealt with Reconstruction from a position of total sympathy with the white South of the day, then with Joseph Smallwood, perhaps a past life, who was one of the Union soldiers who counted the destruction of slavery among the results that mitigated the terrible suffering and dislocation that war caused.

Thursday March 9, 2006

(6:30 p.m.) I don’t mean to quarrel, Mr. Bowers, but the final taste your book leaves in my mouth is one of partisanship. All the nobility on one side, rascality the only motive on the other side. It is overdone, and ultimately doesn’t wash. This book looks to have been written at least in part for partisan purposes, not as a testimonial. It is somewhere between history, journalism, and propaganda.

Say that is so, it will not find itself alone on the shelf! As I said, books are written to be tools or weapons, not as monuments.

Continue reading Two Views of the Civil War and Reconstruction

This 19-year-old risked his life on Marye’s Heights to give aid to the wounded on the other side while the battle was still going on. The federals when they realized what he was doing stopped shooting and sent thunderous cheers. The boy was killed the following September, a month after his 20th birthday–but his generous act had assured that his name would live.

Overcoming the real enemy

Last Friday and Saturday, my friend Jim and I visited the sites of two Civil War battlefields: Fredericksburg and The Wilderness. In 2006, similarly, we had gone together to visit the battlefield at Gettysburg,

Those who have been following this “Chasing Smallwood” thread know that I am in contact with a Union veteran named Joseph Smallwood. Jim is similarly connected to a Confederate veteran named Hank who, like Joseph, survived the war. But Hank, unlike Joseph, has continued to be bitter about the war, having lost his home and his previous way of living to what he considered to be an unjustified invasion of his homeland.

When Jim had suggested that we visit the site of Fredericksburg I instantly agreed–but I also felt butterflies in my stomach. I wasn’t sure that Joseph was looking forward to revisiting that particular ghastly experience. Yet I knew it was important.

Continue reading The real enemy