PS.
A few years ago my (now 85 year old) mother, asked me what I would like to
have for my birthday.
When I mentioned that I would LOVE to have a flag pole and a flag, she
looked at me and said,
"Why do you want a flag pole?"
"To fly a flag!!"
She said, "What flag?"
I said, "An American flag, of course."
She thought that over and then said, "Well, when I was growing up in
Richmond, no one flew the American flag very much. We didn't even celebrate
the 4th of July all that much."

Deane Mills
York County Virginia




----- Original Message -----
From: Deane <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: Hampton (Virginia) National Cemetary: 757.723.7104


> I would like to wade into these waters and put forth the idea that history
> is not just what is and has been written down in books, but also that
which
> is remembered and passed on from one generation to the next. I mentioned
to
> this List, a week or so ago, that my 4 grandparents were all born in the
> South (Virginia and North Carolina) in the decade or so  following The
Wah.
> Two of those grandparents lived to be astute and alert and active people
who
> reached the ages of 100 and 102 years old;  I was blessed to have them and
> their wisdom for well into my 40's.
> They were able to related to me stories about what life in the South was
> like before the War, during the War, and after the War.
> That period of American history......living through a horrible, terrible
war
> that was fought in one's own back yard, and then living through the hell
of
> Reconstruction, being at the mercy of an occupying enemy army, left an
> INDELIBLE impression on those who experienced it.
> During the Viet Nam war, my grandmother was STILL talking about the Civil
> War.
> Unless Professors Forsythe and Finkelman and others like them were close
to
> someone who could give them the benefit of first hand experience, all they
> know is what they have read or been taught by someone else who probably
> wasn't there.
> Deane Mills
> Yorktown VA
>
>
> > War aims, collective political identity, the locus of patriotism, and
> > many other great questions of history, cannot be resolved by a
> > single quotation or a single item of evidence.
> >   The earlier post, referring to the defection of slave states from the
> > Confederate cause, and the pro-Union stance of so many free
> > whites in states that had formally withdrawn from the Union, should
> > give us pause in even claiming that the white South, let alone the
> > black South, was unified on any question during the period 1860-
> > 1865.
> >
> > Harold
>
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