Joe Brent says…
Civil War Sesquicentennial – why should we commemorate it?

By JOSEPH E. BRENT

(EDITOR’S NOTE:  Joe Brent, an editorial writer for The Bugle, is vice president of Mudpuppy and Waterdog, a historic preservation consulting firm. Contact him at jbrent1@windstream.net.)

Why commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial?

I have a spiel based on all sorts of historical facts and drawn-out reasoning that goes something like this. The Civil War was the most cataclysmic and defining event in America’s history. It defined us as a nation. Before the war we referred to our country as these United States; after the war we became the United States, a subtle but very real difference. More than 600,000 American soldiers were killed during the Civil War; up until 1975 or so that was more than all other wars combined. The war freed four million slaves from bondage. More than 200,000 men who had been enslaved took up arms as United States soldiers to fight for their freedom and the freedom of others.

Joe Brent

What began as a war to save the Union evolved into a war to end slavery. Lincoln was a pragmatist, but he also believed that slavery was wrong. His Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until late in the second year of the war and did not take effect until Jan. 1, 1863. It freed no slaves in the loyal states and, if the Union lost, no slaves would have been freed at all. So who cares?

Yes, the 19th century was a very racist time. African Americans were held as slaves in the south. Several Midwestern states passed laws that would not allow free African Americans to live within their borders. But, and this is a huge but, during the course of that brutal and awful war the feelings of many Union soldiers changed toward African Americans and the institution of slavery. Northern men who fought in the South and came into contact with enslaved people were changed by what they saw. Many came to believe in a war to end slavery, and that African Americans should be allowed to fight for their freedom and the freedom of others.

Many African American men joined the military. Their decision was not as straight forward as it might now seem. The Confederacy refused to recognize African American men as soldiers. If captured, they were returned to their masters or worse. Black men were massacred at Fort Pillow, Poison Springs, Saltville and other places, some now forgotten. Black soldiers knew what might happen and fought with grim determination.

Again, so what; who cares? The paragraph above only underscores the racist nature of the times. It’s also one of the reasons to commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial. When the nation marked the Civil War Centennial in the 1960s it was the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The celebration was a white one – it was about valor and honor and battles and great white generals. In the Southern states it was all about the Confederacy. In fact, in some Southern states the Civil War Centennial was called the “Confederate Centennial.” Slavery, much less the contribution of United States Colored Troops, was not mentioned.

This was so blatant that Jay Ward, the satirist and cartoonist who brought us Rocky and Bullwinkle, devoted an episode to what he called the League of Confederate Correctors. Every time someone in the episode said Civil War a colonel-type, think Colonel Sanders, popped up and said: “That’s War Between the States, son.”

If for no other reason, we must commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial to allow the whole Civil War story to be told to a new generation. Slaves were not just freed, they took an active part in securing freedom. Women nursed soldiers, worked farms and raised children. The war was not just a glorious series of battles; it devastated a region. It brought profound change to the nation. It was violent, forced change, yes, but change that could have only been wrought by force of arms, change that had to be made.

The Civil War constitutional amendments – the 13th, 14th and 15th – gave freedom to the slaves and insured civil rights to all. It’s true that these amendments were subverted for another 100 years or so after the end of Reconstruction, which is the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the room. That’s a story for another time. However, for a few years after the war – all people in this nation had a stake in the laws and in the states in which they lived. The roles of those individuals are lost or written off as the work of radicals. But, Black men were elected to the senate and congress from almost every Southern state. In 1868, Black men help forge the state constitutions in many of the former Confederate states. That would not have happened without the force of arms known as the Civil War.

I cannot speak for other cultures. I cannot get inside of other peoples’ heads and know how they feel. I am a white, Southern man. I was a child in the early 1960s in Birmingham, Ala. I remember the fears of the white community. What they really feared was change. The Civil War amendments meant that the Civil Rights movement was both morally and legally right. The rights that were AGAIN secured in the 1960s were forged in the 1860s.

To write off our ancestors as simply racist is wrong. Most Confederate soldiers did not own slaves and some Union soldiers did. That irony should not be lost on us today. As far as I know, all of my Civil War ancestors were Confederates. I feel no hatred or shame because of what these men did. They did what they believed was right. Who am I to judge them?

The Civil War was, above all else, about courage. Soldiers proved countless times how they would stand or charge against all odds – think of the hopeless determination of the Union men at the Hornet’s Nest, the doomed charge of the Confederate army at Franklin, Tenn. or the charges of the United States Colored troops at Nashville. There was another kind of courage as well, the courage to face the unknown. In the summer of 1862, thousands of enslaved Arkansans left the only life they had ever known and followed Gen. Samuel Curtis’s Union army for weeks across Arkansas for a chance, just a hope, of freedom.

There are many things about the Civil War that many will never agree upon. However, the war and the results of that war are worthy of our remembrance. Wars should not be celebrated but commemorated and the land where people fought and died should be preserved.

Much time has passed since that war ended, but the lessons it can teach us remain, if we will only learn.