Kevin,

  Nicely and thoughtfully put!

Harold

Date sent:              Wed, 15 Aug 2001 20:01:27 -0400
From:                   Kevin Hardwick <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: sherman
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
        <[log in to unmask]>

> I must say that I find a real irony in discussions like this one.  I too
> am Southern bred, with a lineage which traces back to 17th century
> immigrants to Virginia, and ultimately back to the Filmer's of Restoration
> England. And of course heritage is a good thing, and something rightfully
> to be celebrated.  Nonetheless, we live in the present, not the past, and
> we use our memories and our understanding of our past in order to inform
> our orientation to, and ultimately our actions regarding, the messy
> realities of contemporary America.  And here I think there is a real
> disjuncture which occurs in the way we remember the Civil War, because at
> a deep level just about all Americans have accepted the ideals for which
> the North fought the Civil War, and agree that the civic results of that
> conflict were essentially good.
>
> Earlier this summer a memorial to the veterans of D-Day was established at
> Bedford, Virginia--an altogether appropriate site, given the number of
> soldiers from that small town who died on the Normandy beachs and in the
> surf 57 years ago.  I suspect that they fought for values which are still
> widely shared by many southern men and women today. I suspect that they
> understood American freedom to mean that hard work and good character
> would be rewarded, that economic independence was a desirable thing and
> dependence debilitating, that private tyranny led to civic incapacity, and
> that a society which denied economic opportunity and access to
> independence to persons who worked hard and possessed a virtuous character
> was an unjust one.  I suspect too that they rejected any notion of
> aristocratic privilege, but rather asserted the equality of all citizens,
> especially before the law, and especially with regard to the ownership of
> productive property.
>
> It may be that some, perhaps all, of the Boys of Bedford, in their hearts,
> hankered back to the Herrenvolk democracy of ante-bellum Virginia, which
> justified white equality on the basis of racist assumptions about the
> inherent suitability of persons of African descent to be no more than
> laboring beasts.  But regardless of the attitudes of white rural
> Virginians in the 1930s and 1940s, I would submit that very few Virginians
> today subscribe to such assumptions.  That kind of blunt racism, and the
> civic thinking it spawned, is very much subterrenean today.
>
> Or, to put it more bluntly, the values for which Northerners fought the
> Civil War--the values summed up in the slogan "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free
> Men"--have their most ardent defenders today in the South.  These
> values--the values of Sherman and the cause for which he fought--are now
> resurgent in precisely those places which most actively remember the kind
> of war he fought.  Its something to think about next time you see a bumper
> sticker with the words "Heritage, not Hate."
>
> All my best,
> Kevin Hardwick
>
> -
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html