So, 150 years ago today, the Battle of Gettysburg began. It is the single bloodiest battle in American history (on US soil), lasting three days and culminating in what is famously referred to as Pickett's Charge. Gettysburg is considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy and Robert E. Lee's best chance to win the war. It is not his last chance, it is not his only chance, but it was his best.
To the men who died today, and for the next two days, your deaths are not forgotten, and they are most certainly not in vain.
I have a hard time writing much more than this. I could give you a detailed description of this battle. I could draw diagrams and scan them into the computer, but I don't think anyone really wants to read me tell you all about troop and cannon movements. And, truthfully, the history here affects me greatly. I cannot go to the cemetery there; it gives me a headache, and I find myself hearing screams whenever I close my eyes.
It is a dark period in our history; a period of blood and divisive politics. A period in which brother fought brother, and our nation was divided in a way I hope it is never divided again. And I admit that the political situation in which we found ourselves has me worried that something equally horrible will happen. Perhaps not a deadly, all-out war that will kill hundreds of thousands of Americans...but something equally horrible. After all, we're doomed to repeat our history...especially as we never seem to learn from it.
Anyway, I don't want to pontificate today...But here is a list of books I recommend for anyone who might want to read about The Civil War. (Keep in mind that not even historians are free from bias, and one must read these books remembering
Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson
The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote
The Diary of Mary Chestnut by, you guessed it, Mary Chestnut
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Mosby's Raiders by Jeffry D. Wert (I am biased toward Mosby...)
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (This book...is odd, admittedly, in that it is about Southerners who forget the war is over.)
There are also the Official Records of the Civil War, which you can actually find online. It is every piece of official correspondence from the Civil War. Quite fascinating. And the various memoirs, letters, recollections, and newspapers from the period. Grant, Lee, Mosby, Robert Gould Shaw (that guy Ferris Bueller played in Glory), etc. all have memoirs of some sort. The New York Times released a book not long ago comprised entirely of every article from The New York Times during the Civil War. Harpers Weekly is also available online, though you do have to pay for it...sorry.
This is a fascinating war. Read about it. You'll realize just how little we've moved on in the ensuing years, and just how much the American psyche is a divided one...and just how much those divisions have followed us down through the centuries...perhaps all the way from Jamestown.
Tell me that isn't important.
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