Wherein two old soldiers, one Northern and one Southern, discuss the import of the American Civil War which started 150 years ago today.
One of my oldest friends, whom I have known my entire adult life, is a true Son of the South. We first met over 25 years ago when as a kid from small town Iowa I showed up in New Orleans for college. Bubba (yes, that's what we all call him), was one of the first people I had met. Being a local, Bubba showed me all the really good bars, bookstores, and restuarants that real New Orleanians frequent and have generally kept secret from all the tourists.
Bubba and I were both commissioned as Second Lieutenants together from ROTC all those years ago and we've kept in touch ever since. Like me, Bubba has had his life up-ended by 9/11, but with the double whammy of Katrina thrown in as well. Bubba finds himself on this important historical day on his third mobilization and second overseas deployment to "Southwest Asia" (Kuwait).
Much as the Civil War was a war of letters, the current wars (3 of 'em now, WOW!) is also leaving a mark upon literature, albeit in e-mail form. As avid amateur historians, Bubba and I have long discussed the impact of "the War" on how we came to where we are as a nation. Follow me below the fleur d' Kos for our latest e-mail exchange from today. After re-reading it, I was struck by how much the Civil War shaped both Bubba and me as well through our ancestors. Enjoy!
Hey Bubba!
I just had to reach out to my Southern brethren on this most notable of anniversaries, by which I mean the commencement of the War of Southern Rebellion (known to you as the War of Nothern Aggression). We maybe currentlly at war (3 of them actually), but compared to what our ancestors did, all I can say is "Holy Cr@p!" Let's just say that there weren't any Green Beans cafe's (edit: a chain of military run coffee counters found in the larger bases "in country") anywhere to be found along the trench lines of Petersburg or Cold Harbor.
As for our ancestors, I suspect chances are pretty good that they probably faced off at one time or another during the campaigns for control of the Western Rivers (Missisippi, Tennessee, Cumberland, Red) as my distant relatives were good Union men serving in the Iowa volunteer regiments. My more immediate direct ancestors, however, didn't serve, but rather were war-time profiteers and notorious scallywags. Yep, the family fortune on my mothers side was made literally pork barrel by pork barrel. My great, great grandfather, the KBR of his times, had "secured" the contract to purchase, process, and transport good Iowa swine for sale to the Union Armies that my more distant relations served in. Said family fortune was to stand for 3 generation until my grandparents spend-thrift ways had gone throught the millions they had inherited.
Unfortunately for my side, in our victory we had forfeited all the great litereature. No William Faulkner, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Robert Penn Warren, or Tennnessee Williams for us! However, I will leave you with one of the great speeches of our heritage, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. When I was a younger man, I used to take my PT (edit: physical training) on the Washington Mall by running from the Smithsonian to Grant's statue at the base of Capitol hill then back the length of the Mall and up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I would culminate at Lincoln's feet in my delirium as I read the following words inscribed on the wall to Lincoln's left:
"Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."
Yr. Ob't Servant
Bubba's response:
As any number of Southern preachers say:
"My friend (pronounced fraynd)",
I can think of no better way to mark the beginning of this sesquicentennial period in our Nation's story than to quote Brother Lincoln. It's amazing to read the bilge that some people still put out about the War. Especially that it wasn't about slavery! As I read recently, it was about state's rights; the right to own slaves, among them.
I have always been of mixed opinions about how to approach the War. As a Southerner I feel strongly about the sacrifices made, the mistakes that men make, and of course the generally more exciting and flamboyant Confederates...I mean, which schoolboy wants to read about George Meade? Really? Give me J.E.B. Stuart any day. It's very complicated and certainly far from being over where I'm from. Cue Faulkner's quote about history in the South...
(edit: "The past is never dead. It's not even past.")
But of course behind all of that is the Truth, and that is that we as a nation decided to kill each other over the right to enslave fellow humans. I do indeed count at least two Confederates in my attic (as the book is titled; highly recommended); one was an infantryman captured at Vicksburg, and the other was a ship captain out in SW Louisiana who enlisted as a Private in Griffin's Battalion, from Texas, and fought at the Battle of Sabine Pass in 1863. He was the one who owned slaves, enough to make his citrus business profitable. So when I see nonsense about causes I think of my ancestors (in fact, the first male member in what would become my maternal grandmother's family left Alsace for Canada with the British Army, then moved to New Orleans and bought slaves. And a few blocks in the French Quarter, but I digress.).
So I look at the War as being the thing that absolutely tore the country apart yet was necessary to define who we are as a nation. Shelby Foote mentions that in the documentary. The really sad part about all of that is to see what happened afterwards with Reconstruction, and where we are today.
And yes, I will say that losing the War gave us better literature, music, and food. There. I said it. I challenge you to tell me that there's better food in Maine. Really? Pulled pork barbecue? Bourbon? Seriously? And I've been struggling with The Sound and The Fury for weeks now. It requires a certain mindset to be ready to read a suicidal college student's thoughts late in the evening.
As a reply to your seeing Mr. Lincoln on your runs. I would drive back from UNO (edit: Univ. of New Orleans) when I was getting certified to teach and I would pass by the equestrian statue of G.T. Beauregard on my way home, always thinking of his role in all of this and wondering why a good creole boy like him would get messed up with guys like Bedford Forrest and Jeff Davis. I guess it's complicated.
So, that was an excellent letter to read this evening. I know that I sure would have had trouble being a soldier back then. I haven't ridden a horse in many a year! And I'm no good with sabres!
Well, I'm going to sit back and wait for another monster sandstorm to engulf us. General Jackson didn't ever have to deal with that.
Yrs in service,