Wednesday, May 1

Hillary’s ponderings “Whose History?”

That question has become a primary question:  who tells the story and how is the story told.  For example, the Park holds “living history” events, almost every month.  These events feature different aspects of life during the time of the battle, the previous event focused on civilian life “under the guns.”  This weekend will be held at Fortress Rosecrans, a military outpost created after the Stones River Battle, in early 1864, to protect the community of Murfreesboro after the Union took over the town when the Confederate soldiers retreated from the battlefield and the town making this a Union Victory.  Primarily the fortress then became a depot through which troops, equipment, supplies, etc. moved for the rest of the war in middle Tennessee and for the ongoing progression toward Atlanta.  We will post photos after the event; one of the big draws will be the cannon firing held three times during each day.

As we move through each day, we are teaching visitors about the battle, and, of course, as a National Park, we teach a particular point of view:  slavery was the cause of the Civil War, official policy since 2000 when Jesse Jackson’s legislation was passed mandating the NPS to present that perspective.  We are, however, regularly engaged by individuals whose perceptions of the Civil War are not only different, but considered to be the “real truth.” 

Just this week, a young man and his family arrived at the park.  He identified himself as a re-enactor for the Confederacy and reported that he would be going to Gettysburg for the Sesquicentennial celebration.  One of his ancestors fought for the South.  He also announced that he is a member of the organization Sons of the Confederacy.  I checked their website where I was promptly informed that the real cause of the CW was economics and that the idea that slavery was the cause was the result of “Marxist theories” of the 1960s. 

Whose history, who tells it, how is it told?  We were also informed today by another visitor that the social studies texts of both Tennessee and Texas, until very recently, taught that the CW was indeed all about economics, and never mentioned slavery.

Three women from Nebraska came to the Park while in town for a sister’s funeral and wanted to see the grave of their relative who died in the Stones River Battle.  He fought for the South; Hillary had to tell them that his gravesite was not in the National Cemetery across the street.  Their response?  “Is the National Cemetery only for damn Yankees?”  I answered, ‘No, it is for anyone who served in the US Army” and had to direct them to Evergreen Cemetery at the south end of Murfreesboro where 2000 Confederate soldiers are buried in a mass grave.

It is fascinating to hear the different ways the story is told by visitors.  If your great, great – someone was a soldier for the CSA, or if you attended a southern school, slavery was not a major factor in the war.  Nor do you refer to this battle as the Stones River Battle; this is the Battle for Murfreesboro.  Union troops refer to battles by geography; Confederates by town.  If you are black and from the South, the war means something completely different to you.  Not so incidentally, the Emancipation Proclamation, when it took effect on January 1, 1863, in the middle of the Stones River Battle, freed the slaves only in the slave states, not all of which had seceded.  In fact, no one really “freed” the slaves; they had to free themselves – get up and leave the familiar and strike out on their own.

This past Saturday we visited the Bradley Academy, primarily a school for blacks prior to integration.  It now houses a museum dedicated to telling the story of the USCT (United States Colored Troops) and the emerging black community of Cemetery after the war.  I wonder how many of us have heard the history of the USCT; 180,000 African Americans served in the Union Army, with over 33,000 killed.   We had heard of the Buffalo Soldiers, black soldiers post-Civil War, so-named by Plains Americans because “their wooly heads are so much like the matted cushion that is between the horns of the buffalo” (Roe, Frances M.A., Army Letters from an Officer’s Wife, 1871-1888).  All I can say is simply that the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know!

So, the questions “whose story,” “who tells the story,” and “how is the story told,” are daily conversation as we volunteer in the Visitor Center.  Is it the “War between the States”?  Is it the “War of Northern Aggression”?  Is it the “Civil” War?  Is it a war for states’ rights?  Is it a war caused by economic hardship for the southern land-owners?  Is it a war to protect the constitution? Is it a war to prevent slavery from expanding?  Is it a war to re-unite the Union?  What is your understanding of the Civil War?