Thought you might find this thought provoking.
It's Not Political
Being a defender.
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Buried beneath a stretch of ground on a ridge above the Broad River
here
in Columbia, S.C., are the remains of some 140 Confederate soldiers.
Though some are in unmarked graves, most are beneath neat rows of
small,
white tombstones. At the entrance to this relatively small section of
the much larger Elmwood Cemetery is a large, wrought-iron archway that
simply says, "Confederate Soldiers 1861-1865." Nearby are ten Union
Army
graves - at least eight of them being soldiers of the U.S. 8th Infantry
Regiment - who died during the postwar occupation of Columbia.
The Union and Confederate graves are separated by an old stone wall -
the wall itself something of an unofficial monument, built to divide,
thus symbolizing the simmering distrust that existed between the two
regions of the country for decades after the war ended in 1865. Beyond
these two sets of graves are interred thousands of other soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and Marines (including many more Civil War veterans
and
countless descendents of those Civil War veterans) from different times
and future wars. My father, a Korean War veteran, is one of them.
Point being: no matter what flags Americans have served under - or
causes they have fought for - since initially choosing between the
colonies and the Crown back in 1775, all are indeed Americans. And
most
of them have fought less over the politics of a given conflict and more
from the sheer fact that they were the ones responsible for defending
the homeland or its interests abroad when politics and diplomacy had
broken down.
As Lord Tennyson wrote:
Theirs not to make reply...
Theirs not to reason why...
Theirs but to do and die...
One of the oft-told stories of the American Civil War is one in which a
U.S. Army officer asks a young Confederate soldier, who had just been
taken prisoner by Union forces, if he (the Confederate) owned slaves.
When the prisoner said no, the officer asked why he was fighting on the
side of the rebellion. The Confederate matter-of-factly responded,
"Because you're here." Sounds simple, but for the Confederate soldier,
taking up arms against the enemy had nothing really to do with politics
or such lofty mid-19th-century issues as slavery and its abolition. It
had everything to do with the fact that his country had been attacked.
And if his fellow countrymen were going to shoulder weapons and march
against the enemy, how could he not?
After all, as U.S. Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur said in 1815, nearly
a
half-century before the Civil War: "Our country! In her intercourse
with
foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right
or wrong!"
REMEMBERING THOSE, RIGHT OR WRONG
We remember those soldiers and sailors - right or wrong - in various
annual observances, from Veterans Day to Armed Forces Day. This week,
we
remember the dead. We've done so since the end of our Civil War, when
annual observances began cropping up in communities across the nation.
The earliest observances specifically honored those Civil War soldiers,
sailors, and Marines who were killed in action or, just as likely, died
of wounds or disease (most of those buried here on the ridge over the
Broad River died in the nearby Confederate hospital).
Which brings us to U.S. Army Gen. John A. Logan, the man who - under
the
command of Gen. William T. Sherman - led an invading force into
Columbia, and who has since been blamed in part for this city's burning
on February 17, 1865. In what seems ironic to many South Carolinians,
it
was Logan who issued an order dated May 5, 1868, for the setting aside
of a special day each year to honor the war's dead. The order
officially
established what was to become Memorial Day - in those days known as
"Decoration Day." It read in part:
"The 30th day of May 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing
with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in
defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies
now
lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.
In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and
comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and
testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit".
So the man partially responsible for torching this old Confederate
city,
is also responsible for the flowers placed on Confederate graves every
spring. Not surprisingly, white Southerners haven't always been too
keen
on the idea of honoring their dead on a day set aside by Logan. And
separate annual Confederate Memorial Days - observed on varying days in
April, May, and June (as well as a Texas Confederate Heroes Day in
January) - have been observed ever since Logan's order was issued.
THE EVOLUTION OF MEMORIAL DAY
"Memorial Days began very soon after the war, and concurrently by both
Northern and Southern groups," Joe Long, curator of education at the
South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, tells
National Review Online. "There's a book entitled Race and Reunion that
claims that the very first Memorial Day service was held by black
Americans in honor of Union soldiers."
Long adds that Northern and Southern observances were organized by
ladies' memorial associations. "Those early memorial services were very
much driven by women." A few weeks after Logan's order, Gen. James A.
Garfield (future president of the United States) presided over the
first
Decoration Day at Arlington National Cemetery (the former estate of
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee), and approximately 5,000 participants
decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate dead - about 20,000
of them - buried on the grounds.
Over the next 20-plus years, communities nationwide held Decoration
(Memorial) Day observances. And by the end of World War I in 1918,
annual services were held to honor the dead from all of America's wars.
In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the
birthplace of Memorial Day after it was determined Waterloo held the
first such service in 1866, one year after the end of the Civil War. In
1971, Memorial Day became a congressionally mandated national holiday.
Arlington National Cemetery continues to hold the largest annual
Memorial Day service. Flags are placed at each of the nearly 300,000
graves. Presidential speeches are made. And a wreath is placed at the
Tomb of the Unknowns (also called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier).
As for me, I'll do what I've done on previous Memorial Days: I'll spend
part of the morning strolling among the graves of both Union and
Confederate soldiers on this ridge here above the Broad River. I'll
think about their efforts. I'll consider how much they struggled on
both
sides. I'll try to imagine what it must have looked like from this very
ridge-top on that single night in February 1865 as my city burned, the
Confederacy collapsed around my great, great grandparents, and what
would become the world's most powerful "nation for good" was saved by
those who were willing to risk death to save it.