War and Remembrance 2
The Battle of Gettysburg is all over the news this week, as death, dismemberment, and dysentery are romanticized.*
I suspect that proponents of the “Lost Cause,” in particular, focus on the battles because doing so enables them to obfuscate just exactly what cause was lost.
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*Yes, I’ve been to Gettysburg, Antietam, the Wilderness, Richmond, and other battlefield sites. Of those, I think the Cornfield at Antietam affected me the most.
When I spent my Junior Year in England, I had a friend who was an American Civil War military history buff. It was a week before I figured out what he meant when he spoke of “the Battle of Aunty Ate ‘Em.”
July 3, 2013 at 3:35 pm
The south devoted an entire genre of historical literature to it, emphasizing the conflict being about states rights with the south losing only because of the north’s superiority in manpower and manufacturing. I wonder if they still cheer at fireworks displays over Fort Sumter?
July 3, 2013 at 10:26 pm
Oh, yeah. I grew up with all that. Remember, my forebears wore the grey.