Civil War – Much That Is Fair

What to an American is the Fourth of July?

On July 9, 1776, five days after its publication and shortly after the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to the people of New York City, New Yorkers tore down the statue of King George that had stood in Bowling Green since 1770 in a fierce demonstration of their new independence. The statue had a tangled history in the years that followed: much of it was melted down to serve as bullets in the Revolutionary War, while Loyalists in Connecticut smuggled a few pieces away to save: centuries later. One of George’s amputated arms was unearthed in 1991 and went up for auction in 2019. George’s horse’s tail went on display at the New York Historical in 2022 as part of an exhibit on the history of America’s difficult relationship with monuments. No one is quite sure what became of the monarch’s head.

In Search of a Usable Past

I have never bothered to conduct a survey, but I suspect that if you did, less than ten percent of the American population could reliably distinguish between the origins of Memorial Day and Veterans Day, rolled as they have been into one commemorative space. This is not your average American’s fault, really: maybe Memorial Day is a little more exciting, with the guaranteed three-day weekend and day off, but we have not marked them as distinct in any meaningful way for a long time now.

They are, however, quite distinct. Memorial Day is the older of the two, although it was once celebrated primarily on May 30, moving through the week like Veterans Day does. It was also reliably celebrated in only half the country until, at the very least, World War I, and in some places not until the 1990s. When it was known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was a holiday to honor Union soldiers; states of the former Confederacy, in a rarely successful display of their commitment to states’ rights, selected different dates by state for Confederate Memorial Day. The death of Stonewall Jackson, May 10, was popular; so was the date of the Confederate surrender to William Tecumseh Sherman (April 26). Strangely, given their consummate fixation on defeat, no one selected April 9: the date of the surrender at Appomattox.

Lord, Have Mercy on This Land of Mine

I don’t know what most folks look for when they travel, but as a historian, one of the most interesting intersections to me in all of America is in Alabama: a circle called Court Square, at the center of downtown Montgomery. It is not a particularly commanding visual, and it holds some of the greatest horrors of the American past in its cobblestones. But as a relic of the layers of American history, all crowded into one tiny little space, it’s hard to beat.

Ironic Points of Light

Several months ago, I had a fascinating conversation with an archivist in New Ulm, Minnesota. I had gone out for the day to review some documents surrounding New Ulm’s World War history – a heavily German town, they had suffered intense discrimination during both World Wars, a story reflected in the town’s monuments. But what New Ulm is famous for in Minnesota history comes earlier: in 1862, the town was besieged as part of the US-Dakota War, a war waged by Dakota people against white settlers for their violation of land treaties. In the same year that the Battle of Antietam handed us the single bloodiest day of combat in US history, it is a war not often minded outside of Minnesota, but it is one that deeply marked the state’s history. The hanging of 38 Dakota prisoners as punishment for the insurrection remains the largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history, and the Dakota people were banished from the state. The attack on New Ulm, meanwhile, was commemorated in a painting that was hung in the Minnesota State Capitol in 1923. It remained for nearly one hundred years, until it was removed in 2016.

The Past Still Needs Us

“I want to wander. But the past still needs me.
How could I ever leave?”
– Hua Xi, The Past Still Needs Me

A sentiment I have heard more and more in recent years from confused and weary liberals is the bitter sense that Lincoln made a grave mistake in keeping the Union together. Why bother? Why not let the South just go? I was first asked this question just after the 2016 election, but I get it more these days, both from my students and from folks who would be pretty happy creating a United Republic of the East and West Coasts and calling it a day. Let them have kept their slaves. Let them have their guns and their backward lives. Leave us out of it.