Facing the battle for America's soul
Write to the Point
Last updated 5/9/2019 at 4:35pm
In just over two weeks, residents will get a chance to see something unique — a fairly accurate depiction of a historical moment that shaped this country into what it is today.
The Washington Civil War Association, in conjunction with the city of Cheney, will bring a two-and-a-half day reenactment of the conflict spanning the years 1861 – 1865 that claimed around 1 million American lives — more than all the major wars fought before and since combined. Ostensibly referred to as “The Battle of Minnie Creek,” or the “Battle of Cheney,” the event is a living depiction of not only Civil War armies and tactics but also how the two sides lived and thought.
It’s a chance to take a three-dimensional look at history. It’s something I hope people will take advantage of by attending, and by perhaps diving into that part of our history through additional research.
You see, the Civil War didn’t solve that much. To understand this, I would recommend historian Jon Meacham’s 2018 book “The Soul of America.” Because while the Union’s victory over the Confederacy ostensibly freed the slaves in the South, the reality is much different.
My first experience with a Civil War reenactment came over 15 years ago when I saw this same group at their former location in Riverside State Park. I stood in a field on a Memorial weekend Sunday and listened to a man portraying a Southerner talk about what we were about to see.
One sentence of his still stands out in my mind: “Of course, you realize that the South was fighting to protect their states’ rights.”
My thought I also remember distinctly: “Yeah, right. The right to own another human being.” Not only was it the right to own another human being, but it was the right to treat that human being however the “owner” saw fit.
For an understanding of this, and how slavery evolved into the Civil War, I suggest another book, Andrew DelBanco’s “The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War.”
You may have noticed that both books I am suggesting contain a similar word: soul. It’s a part of our being seldom debated these days.
What is the American soul? What part of our American soul talks of the right to individual freedom, but proposes a right to deny that freedom to others? How can we reconcile a desire to be treated fairly and equally, but prevent others from enjoying the same?
These are questions our ancestors struggled with in the run up to the Civil War. That similar fact should serve to wipe out the gap of years between them and us.
Watching the reenactment near Cheney’s water treatment plant might give you an idea of the lengths our ancestors went to, and the circumstances they endured to address these questions. The Civil War wasn’t just about slavery, about protecting states’ rights to individual determination or preserving a Union so that central issues could be settled collectively.
It was about all those and much more. It was complex, just as today’s problems are.
We can’t run from that, nor should we. We can’t excuse past bad behavior and practices by seeking to hold them at arms length.
Washington may not have been the site of any real Civil War battles, but it is very much the site, as are all the rest of the states, of the ongoing struggle of freedom against tyranny, of making this country that truly lives up to its self-imposed creeds emblazoned in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
That’s what our ancestors struggled with at Antietam, Gettysburg, Shiloh, Nashville and other blood-soaked fields. We struggle with them today, from places like Charlottesville, Virginia to Hayden, Idaho.
Memorial Day weekend’s reenactment might give you a better understanding of what happens when those battles become all too real.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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