Reflections on Virginia #1

We had the opportunity to visit the Petersburg National Battlefield south of Richmond last week -- site of the last large siege and series of battles before the Confederate defense of Richmond became impossible and the Civil War ended in April 1865.  Among other episodes of conflict, Petersburg was the site of the Battle of the Crater in July 1864, when Union forces who had been miners in Pennsylvania's coal country burrowed under a Confederate emplacement and planted four tons of explosive powder that blew the Confederates sky-high, created an enormous crater -- and ultimately backfired upon the ill-prepared Union soldiers who stood gaping at the destruction or falling by the dozens into the hell-hole they had created.

Today, evidence of various batteries remains spread over miles of the landscape near Petersburg.  The entrance to the mine tunnel and a big depression in the land remain, as well, and are littered with granite obelisks dedicated to the Pennsylvania soldiers or the Confederate victims.  Preservation of this landscape is a gift to our generation in terms of how well it illustrates the range and scope of this single series of battles.  If one arena of the conflict was this enormous, the full scale of the Civil War's hostilities are almost incomprehensibly vast -- and so, by extension, must be the range and scale of most armed conflicts.  Petersburg is one among many useful reminders of how much effort and destruction went into this war.  One would hope it serves as both memorial and caution.

And yet: the battlefields were also among the most peaceful and pastoral landscapes we encountered on our journey.  We saw bald eagles and wild turkeys, and enjoyed (amidst the oppressive eastern humidity -- three cheers for Oregon's climate) leafy green landscapes and vast fields that guarantee the need for a tremendous lawn-mowing budget on the part of the National Parks Service.  It was nearly impossible, gazing upon these beautiful expanses, to imagine the death and destruction that once littered them.  It all seemed rather... romantic, to use the incredibly inappropriate term that so often characterizes the realm of "Lost Cause" lore.

The Crater

Fort Stedman (Union)

Grass covers a multitude of human sins.  This is a good thing in many ways; it is a useful reminder of human impermanence and a testament to the world's endurance even we throw at it the worst of our human inventions.  I wonder, however, whether part of our fascination with the Civil War has something to do with these elysian green fields.  It wasn't romantic; it wasn't green and pretty.  It was hell on earth.  We need to face that and remember that lest we transmute the quiet beauty into a vision of the past that elides the horrors of war.

Reflections on the District #1

 

We recently returned from a trip to Williamsburg, VA and Washington, DC.  It was an amazing experience to actually walk upon some of the same ground that the first permanent English colonists trod, see Virginia's colonial capitol and witness the sites of Civil War and Revolutionary battles.  While I don't subscribe to the idea that one must see these places to be deeply informed about them, I do look forward to the next time I need to discuss Jamestown with my students or talk about the Revolutionary era.

I'll share some photos and reflections over the next couple weeks, but for now, a brief reflection: we had the opportunity to see the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.  The statue is an arresting one (you can see better in the second photo how he emerges to chart a course through the mountain in the background).  What struck me most deeply, however, was that just as we came around the corner of the statue from behind, the elderly lady you can see toward the lower right side of the first photo -- with the tennis-ball-shod walker -- was having her photo taken in front of King.  The poignancy of that moment has stayed with me.  I can only imagine at the trajectory of this woman's life, but what changes she must have witnessed.  Perhaps she simply admired the man; perhaps she was an active participant in the movement.  We have distance yet to cover, but I am thankful for the progress we have made and I hope we can find the moral courage to continue the struggles waged by her generation -- and those before her.

Da-doo-doo, dee da-doo-doo..

I've written previously about historical memory, but it's a topic at the front of my thoughts this afternoon.  We all can talk about where we were or what we were doing when a given event of national or international importance took place.  Ask anyone over the age of about 53 and they'll be able to tell you where they were or what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  We all have personal reference points for the day those planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  And in early 1991, I came home home after school and turned on one of my favorite old programs to find that a bulletin was scrolling across the base of the screen.  "Waves" of planes (I'll never forget the use of that word) were bombing Iraq.  War counterposed against a story its star once described as all about love; planes and high-tech weaponry against near-utopian idyll.  The program in question?

[Credit]

You guessed it.

Yes, I realize 1950s North Carolina was far more complex--and troubled--than Mayberry.  That said, there's value in friendship and community... and a legacy of peaceful resolution, episode after episode (no matter how much Barney might have hankered to use those handcuffs).

Rest in peace, Andy Griffith.  We could use a lot more of you and a lot less of those scrolling headlines.

Link: Underpaid and Underappreciated: A Portrait of Part-time Faculty Members

Depressing, but fairly accurate.

Underpaid and Underappreciated: A Portrait of Part-time Faculty Members

You know you're a historian when...

... you write a note to yourself in your daily planner to remind the other half that pick-up day for the CSA (as in Community-Supported Agriculture) box is Tuesday this week due to the Independence Day holiday, and rather than farms, the first thing you think of every time you see the note is "why am I writing notes to myself to remind Geoff about the Confederacy?"

Quote of the Day: This is Why I Teach History

A quote I came across this morning from the late Edward Said...

"What our leaders and their intellectual lackeys seem incapable of understanding is that history cannot be swept clean like a blackboard, clean so that 'we' might inscribe our own future there and impose our own forms of life for these lesser people to follow."
--preface to the 25th anniversary edition of Orientalism

Jeb Bush on Orthodoxy

Jeb Bush to a gathering of reporters and editors on Monday:

"Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, similar to my dad, they would have had a hard time if you define the Republican Party--and I don't--as having an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement.  Back to my dad's time or Ronald Reagan's time, they got a lot of stuff done with bipartisan support that right now would be difficult to imagine happening."

Bush is absolutely right.  (It is important to note, in the interest of accuracy, that he went on to decry similar orthodoxy in the Democratic Party.)  There is an irony in contemporary appeals to the principles of the "Founders," because historically speaking, one of the primary motivating forces behind the original structure of the American governmental system was to provide for a system in which independent representatives could use their informed judgment to make decisions in the country's best interests.  This system in its original form was not without its (major!) problems, from overwhelming suffrage exclusions to brutal institutionalized racism.  I think it's safe to say, however, that Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson would all have been scandalized by the thought of pledging fealty to Grover Norquist or mounting legislative battles predicated exclusively upon the foundation of making the other side look silly.

In partisan terms, the scale of our preoccupation with orthodoxy is a relatively recent problem.  Knee-jerk issues have a long and storied history, but until recently they tended to be aligned more closely with region (for example, at various points in history, South = pro-slavery and then pro-segregation; Northeast = pro-tariff; Midwest = isolationist).  The reality that in many cases, these regional blocs shared party identity with others of very different ideological ilk created conditions ripe for deal-making and compromise.  Today's situation is more dangerous insofar as we lack countervailing forces to oppose the pressure of the knee-jerk position.  It is encouraging to see someone of Bush's stature speak out; it will be interesting to see whether and how the conversation progresses from here.

[Quotation taken from wire report in the Oregonian, Tuesday, June 12, 2012.]