LarryC Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 ---------------- On 2/29/2004 10:50:39 PM Ray Garrison wrote: I am totally in agreement with the idea that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Studing this, or any, war from that perspective is an honorable pursuit (IMHO). I guess I just can't compartmentalize my emotional horror at the events away from the study of what, and why, what happened, happened. ---------------- Part of it for me is awe over the scale and sometimes import of the events -- what people thought, how they got themselves into it, what might have been. The people, their beliefs, judgements, all that. The Little Bighorn Battlefield has the same effect (nor was it necessarily all Custer's fault, which increases the interest). You're right -- I was very weighed down emotionally after an extensive tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, wasn't real happy that I did it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 ---------------- On 3/1/2004 5:25:33 PM larryclare wrote: You're right -- I was very weighed down emotionally after an extensive tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, wasn't real happy that I did it. ---------------- This all reminds of a little exchange between one of the students and the professor when I took a world geography class in college. We were talking about the then current civil war that just erupted over there in Yugoslavia (in 1992) and the grief it is causing the populace there. One of the students in class made a remark something like, "I cannot imagine what it would be like if something like that happened in the U.S.". The professor immediatly shot back, "What the heck you think happened in the first part of the 1860's?" The student just kinda sat there humbled and mutter something like "Oh yeah". Yeah, I live less than ten miles from Chancerllorville Battlefield - the place where Stonewall Jackson was shot by his own troops. It is a sobering experience to go over there. Even walking along the Rappahannock River, it sometimes get me thinking just how horrible it must've been for those brave young men. Christ, most of those guys were barely kids, at 18, 19, 20 years old! The officers where maybe late 20's, early 30's (my age). Going over there to Salem Church, which is just right across the highway from my house, it was something else. It was a field hospital. It is amazing to see and hear the stories of the amputated limps that where stacked up outside. The stories of the blood literally running out the back door. Gives me the chills whenever I go by there. The riverfront here in town used to be filled with warehouses and mills. Fredericksburg was considered a major port, with an extensive network of locks and canals going some 50 miles up the Rappahannock (and a lot of those locks and canals can still be seen to this day). Livestock and grain and other farm produce was shipped down the Rappahannock from the farms up river, while goods broght into town are shipped back up (those farmers got thier dishes and furniture and the like somewhere - what they could not make themselve, they had to get shipped in). During the Civil War, nearly all that got destroyed! It basically ruined the economy of this town. I hear stories of how Union troops raided and ransacked the town. Quite an exhibit in the museum downtown here detailing all this. Even in the Masonic Lodge, we have records of how the Masons at the time took and hid the lodge artifacts to prevent them from getting stolen/destroyed by both sides. Some of the stuff we go in there is extremely valuable and rare, such as that Gilbert Sullivan portrait of George Washington. Pretty amazing how something 140 years ago can still have such an effect on people. Something like 9/11 will most likely have a simliar effect for a long time. Hell, talking with some of the older folks around, it is interesting what kind of reactions I get when I mention December 7, 1941 - many of those folks remember it like it just happened yesterday. 9/11 has that same effect on me, I tell those older folks now I can truly understand how you've must've felt in 1941. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted March 3, 2004 Share Posted March 3, 2004 Rented "Gods and Generals" yesterday. I'm half way through it. I had no idea that Stonewall Jackson was such a God fearing man. I didn't read that anywhere in any of the civil war historical sites. That or I must have missed it. It's good so far, right now I'm right in the middle of the Fredericksburg battle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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