I recently have been struck by the oddity of how we view our personal links to (and thus how we remember) history. I work in an interpretive business, dealing with the public all the time. I am always struck by how excited people become upon learning that their ancestors were witness to the grand-and often terrible-events in our history.
A very romantic representation of the distinctly un-romantic fighting at Spotsylvania’s “Bloody Angle”–so named for a terrible reason.
Should we be excited that our ancestors fought for twenty-two straight hours in the muddy, blood-soaked trenches at Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle? Or that they witnessed the terrible slaughter in front of the stone-wall at Fredericksburg? What sparks such a positive emotion to such an evil event?
It is always exciting to learn of our direct connections to history. It makes the past come alive, and we feel pride in learning that our ancestors fought for a cause, or participated in the great moments of our history. But it is always important to remember not just the grandeur, but also the fear and pain and darkness that make those events grand. These events are great because they are terrible.
In a sense, we are guilty of that same sanization of history when children are sworn into the army daily at Gettysburg’s Visitor’s Center, when Hollywood romanticizes the war, or when we focus too often on battles and tactics and anecdotes.
We must not forget the powerful emotions and darkness ever present in moments from the past.
I am currently reading Coal Black Horse, recommended here, btw. It is books like this one that do such a good job of reminding us how terrible war is. There is tension in the academic community among those who just see strategy and tactics, those who want to tell a good, true story, and everything in between. It is a strange battle.
Just now it seems that learning about our ancestors is a big deal, but then, just now we are a fairly self-involved society. As a teacher, I know making these connections draws people in to the topic, but I wish it would not define them thereafter.
I was just (re)reading something by Robert Penn Warren this morning that speaks to this very thing, Zac: “That was our Homeric period, and the figures loom up only a little less than gods, but even so, we recognize the lineaments and passions of men, and by that recognition of common kinship share in their grandeur.”
But by that same token, Warren reminds us: “History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that. It was real blood, not tomato catsup or the pale ectoplasm of statistics, that wet the ground at Bloody Angle and darkened the waters at Bloody Pond.”
Thanks, Zac, for taking the time to remind us to think about these things.
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