Remembering War

How is the American Civil War remembered today? Are there conflicting understanding of the reason for the war, or what the war was "about"?

The American Civil War causes a couple main thoughts in the mind of a young student who has taken history classes growing up. Thought such as slavery and abolition, confederacy vs union, and a time of extreme internal conflict in this country.

      

 Slavery was an extreme case of dehumanization of an entire race of people for the benefit of another, as a result when some minds were awakened to the treachery an abolition movement began. Those in favor of the abolition made up the Union side of the war, while those against made up the Confederacy.  

"a time of extreme internal conflict in this country" <- this is a part of my own remembrance of the war. Today, the education system provides a section of learning in a class every so often to provide the generations with knowledge about what occurred in our history. To learn from the past is how to best prevent repetition of mistake in the future. This is how the education system "remembers" the Civil War by providing the lessons to be taken from it to the future of our society. 

When it comes to the reason of the war, that could be difference for anyone studying it. The main concept shared was that its surrounded the topic of slavery. Posing questions like can people be considered "property". While students these days are being taught the main overhead facts of the war, it is only until Humanities Core this year where Professor Fahs shares a more personal look at the war that I really understood it. Looking at pictures, poems, and texts about the war and how it affected difference people specifically provided a closer connection to the past. Re-envisioning how it could have felt back then versus just learning the dates and facts of what occurred. 

With this new combination of facts and feelings, I feel like I have more an understanding of the war as a whole. I will never fully be able to grasp how it was back then, however, with a more personal touch, I can attempt to provide a better remembrance. 

A Sight in Camp

A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital
tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended
lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.


Curious, I halt, and silent stand;
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first,
just lift the blanket:
Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey'd hair,
and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you, my dear comrade? 10

Then to the second I step--And who are you, my child and darling?
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third--a face nor child, nor old, very calm, as of
beautiful yellow-white ivory;
Young man, I think I know you--I think this face of yours is the face
of the Christ himself;
Dead and divine, and brother of all, and here again he lies.

-Walt Whitman


In this quarter of HumCore we have been doing a lot of reflection on works of art and to me, poetry is a work of art like any of the paintings and sketches analyzed in class. A past teacher once told me that every word a writer inserts is deliberate and must be recognized when thinking about the text. I believe that this especially true in poetry as they are often shorter than novels, so the emotions are more compact and attention to details such as punctuation is necessary.


The overall tale of this poem is that of "a sight in camp", a glimpse of this specific moment of the war. While reading it I envisioned that the world was frozen in time and then Whitman practically walked through the scenery and wrote of what he saw. The poem starts with Whitman exiting his tent and seeing three bodies near the hospital tent. These three bodies come from men of different age groups; a small child, a young man, and an older gentleman. Whitman reaches the old man first, then the small child, and lastly the young man.


The main concept I got from this piece is the age groups, I believe that age is shown to not only evoke empathy from the reader but also to show that murder in war has no discrimination. Everyone falls victim to the violence. In reading the words, "Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?", that was the moment everything sunk in for me. Whitman states that the boy's cheeks have yet to bloom, the child has not even gotten to adolescence yet and his life was taken away. The shortness of life, the lack of experience, shown here in these words provides insight to the treachery of war. Although Whitman speaks of an older and younger man, it was really the child that sparked the most emotion out of me. Ultimately, as a whole Whitman covers the fact that all three of these people no matter how much they got to live all had to succumb to a brutal death.