Lessons to be Learned From the Civil War
Advertisement
Text size: small | medium | large
The News & Advance
Published: April 20, 2008
For more than a century, The Museum of the Confederacy’s home was in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Housed downtown in the White House of the Confederacy, President Jefferson Davis’ home during the war, the museum, the institution has become the repository of all things relating to the Civil War. But its location in Richmond was also a problem, too: the nearby Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center kept growing and growing, literally engulfing the museum’s home.
And as time went on, fewer and fewer visitors made the trek to downtown Richmond to view the world’s premier collection of Civil War memorabilia. Last year, the museum’s board of directors approved a unique plan to take the institution into the 21st century: split up the collection over four sites in the state and create a “distributed museum,” in the jargon of the museum industry.
That was good news for Appomattox, the home of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park where Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Gen. U.S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac in April 1865. Officials soon announced that Appomattox would be the site of one of the four museum, along with Fort Monroe in Tidewater, the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond and the Fredericksburg area.
The museum owns the world’s largest and most complete collection of Confederate artifacts, including 3,000 military items, 550 wartime flags (59 of them from the surrender at Appomattox), 250 uniform pieces and more than 100,000 manuscripts in its research library. More than 4,300 Virginia school students particated in the museum’s SOL-based programs last year; a teachers’ institute is held every summer; visitors come from across the country and from around the world.
Museum president Waite Rawls and two of his top staffers were in the area last week to update folks on the progress of the relocation process, and they are more than excited about the future.
The museum is now in the “silent phase” of its multimillion dollar fund drive, according to Rawls, who expects a public drive to begin sometime in the near future. Their goal is to have the three new sites, in addition to the Richmond headquarters, up and running in time for the 150th anniversary of the start of the war in 2011.
Anyone who thinks The Museum of the Confederacy is just one giant memorial to “The Lost Cause,” the “War of Northern Aggression” or whatever hagiographic term you wish to use, would be woefully mistaken.
According to Rawls, the museum’s purpose is simple and straightforward: to tell the story of the Civil War and its aftermath and to discern lessons current and future generations can learn from conflict.
One of those lessons — how a nation split asunder by war can reunite peacefully after hostilities — is what made Appomattox a “no-duh” site for a museum branch, Rawls said. Officials from countries all over the world that have undergone civil wars have journeyed to Richmond to try to glean lessons to take home about how America reunited in a small house in Appomattox.
When the Appomattox museum and the other three branches open, they’ll be sites of learning and research, not sacred repositories of Confederate relics. They won’t be telling the “Gone With the Wind” version of Southern history, but the truth, warts and all.
And every person — black and white — will feel welcome in the museum that celebrates the creation of the modern America.
Post a Comment
Please Log In
Comment posting requires free registration with Lynchburg News Advance.
Already have an account? Please log in.
Can't find what you're looking for? Try our quick search:
Reader Reactions
Posted by ( poet ) on April 23, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I’m not opposed to preserving history. What I’m opposed to is perpetuating the lies about said history. I well know how important it is for both sides to be presented, but what good is it, or what do we teach our children when we don’t present the truth?
Example: Randy says the Yankees honored their dead too. He totaly ignores the fact that the Yankess weren’t the ones that fired on the American flag. Classic example of trying to conflate two different issues as if they have the same merit. The honor of the Union dead fighting to preserve America as opposed to honoring those criminals that fired on America. It’s the pathology of denial that allows one to dismiss those inconvenient truths.
And don’t come at me with that nonsensical argument that I’m name calling. Go fire on the flag and then come back and tell us if you are treated as honorable or as a criminal.
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 23, 2008 at 10:04 am
I take you at your word (ewoman). So, please provide us with the location of the multimillion dollar museum to the Loyalist cause. I want to go! I want to buy some T-shirts that say [The Crown shall rise Again]. I am sure Randolph would like the address too so he can send a donation. Randy! You are right when you say, “The Yankees also honor their dead.” They still think the world of Lou Gehrig and Micky Mantle.
Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 22, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I am happy to see the museum being salvaged as it is, and will be happy to contribute to the fund-raising drive for the effort. Museums help us see the past as it was, and we would be much poorer without the reference. The Yankees also honor their dead, as the inscription on the parapet of a Boston park says about Colonel Robert Shaw, “Right in the van, On the red rampart’s slippery swell, With heart that beat a charge, he fell, Foeward, as fits a man; But the high soul burns on to light men’s feet Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet “. An elegant tribute to a soldier who died for a noble cause, and to serve as an example for us who follow. I love the term “foeward”, facing the enemy, a courageous charge. May our soldiers always be as brave as these men, both North and South, black and white, all ultimately Americans.
Posted by ( ewoman ) on April 22, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Oh, but there are museums with loyalist memorabilia, Cosmos, and there are museums that hold memorabilia to the Third Reich as well. My point, and I didn’t make it very well, is that there’s no point in remembering the winners if the losers’ perspectives are lost. Then we would wonder why men lost their lives in the first place. Both sides of a battle go into war believing that their side is the “right” side. Instead of debate and common-sense delegation and appropriate actions, men (and women) go to war and the “right” side wins when they succeed in decimating the other side through even more bloodshed. Somehow this worked out during the Holocaust and during the Civil War, but many wars have been fought that aren’t that clear. The fact that people have responded to this article and to other posters with such venom proves that there’s enough anger here to start another war. All we need are a few politicians. And, possibly a new flag.
Posted by ( poet ) on April 22, 2008 at 11:53 am
Cosmos, you are right, it is denial. Denial is the pathology they wrap themselves in that makes them think all history comes from the white point of view. Denial protects them for having to face the truth about the confederacy. Denial keeps them blind to the parallel histories that so long has been ignored. Denial gives folks like Brandon the license to ignore the facts
Posted by ( poet ) on April 22, 2008 at 11:33 am
Brandon, quote anything I said about the Confederacy that meets the definition of name calling.
If you want to argue against any definiton I used, then take it up with webster’s dictionary. If you fire on the American flag, are you a criminal or a hero? The confederates can thank U. S. Grant for his attitude of reuniting the nation in Appomattox, Va. Most of the representatives of the Union wanted the confederate leaders to be shot as traitors, including Robert E. Lee. That was the definition of the confederates during and after the war. That’s just facts my man. Those that now revere the confederacy want to redefine them as honorable, but that certainly was not the definition in real time.
Grant would not allow those summary executions for the ‘common good’ of reuniting the nation. In fact during the surrender he wouldn’t even allow his troops to celebrate or harrass those givng up their arms, not even vocally.
Now suppose you explain to me why my attitude toward the confederacy, as a black descendant of this country, has to reflect what you think it should be? Explain to me why me relating my history and feelings with regard to this issue is nothing more than name calling?
See, that’s exactly what I was talking about. You see the confederacy your way, and because I don’t revere it or its symbols the same way, then I’m name calling. Could it simply be that my history is different and I have just as much right to vocalise what the confederacy means to me?
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 22, 2008 at 10:02 am
You just have to laugh. ( ewoman ), you forgot only one little detail. The Confederates LOST! You can search this country from one end to the other and you will not find a museum to the Loyalists. It’s one thing to attempt a revolution and win. It’s quite another to revolt, start a horrible war, AND LOSE! The museum of the Confederacy can in no way be compared to the Holocaust Museum. The very idea is insulting to Black people in the extreme. If you think I am wrong, I invite you to request that the Holocaust Museum be RENAMED. Call it The Museum of the Third Reich! Sell T-shirts with Nazi flags on them. Baseball caps with swastikas on the front. And, bumper stickers with “Germany will Rise Again” on them. See how the Jewish community feels about it and get back to us.
( brandon ) makes my point for me. He writes, “It was a good plan because the rich white northerners got to keep the Southern whites down and kept the blacks whom they despised down for over a hundred years.” Now I see! The South was overanxious to uplift the black people they just fought a war to keep as slaves, BUT, the rich Yankees kept them from doing it. [It gets better folks] According to (brandon) “US Congress decided the best way to get revenge on the South and to make sure it stayed weak was to pit the white race against the black race.” Yes (brandon) and a diabolical plan it was! Since Southern Whites were just chomping at the bit to welcome their X-slaves as equals, an the age old tradition of Southern racial tolerance was destroyed. By who? The US Congress. I’m going out on a limb here (brandon), but, I’m betting you wished the Confederates won and I’m thinking you don’t care much for Yankees. So much for “healing”. But, it’s only been almost 150 years. The Museum perpetuates the kind of twisted thinking (brandon) has so kindly offered us. It is a disgrace to utilize taxpayers money to perpetuate such an insult to so many Americans.
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 21, 2008 at 6:05 pm
It’s denial Poet. It’s the collective inability to admit what the Confederate flag stood for. They have two choices. (1) Admit they would be much happier if they won and STILL had slavery. or (2) Admit they were damn lucky not to have all been executed for the criminal activity they engaged in. Instead, they fawn over a museum to the mythical glory of the War of Northern Aggression. THEY can’t deal with the shame....so..... they blame it on black people and say, “get over it.” To this day they hate Yankees. To this day they long for the days when YOU couldn’t swim in the pool. When, Poet, you knew your place. My wife and I hear it all the time, mostly from the wealthy old women. I have some German heritage. Can I fly a Nazi flag at my house and say, “It ain’t hateful, it’s Heritage?
Posted by ( brandon ) on April 21, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Oh, here we go again with the name calling about Confederates. It is a good thing the glorious Lincoln didn’t live to finalize his plans. If you read Lincoln’s comments you would find he despised African-Americans. He was so anxious to free them that he kept 500 slaves working round the clock to finish building the Capitol dome while the war to “free” them was going on. Funny thing he forgot to free them. Funny thing he admitted West Virginia as a slave state in 1863 three years into the war to end slavery. Lincoln planned to end slavery, end it here and ship the slaves to sugar plantations in the caribbean so there would be more jobs and land for the white folks. I think they call that ethnic cleansing. Well Lincoln’s notions went by the wayside because the US Congress decided the best way to get revenge on the South and to make sure it stayed weak was to pit the white race against the black race. Instead of blaming the government get those “rednecks” to blame the blacks for their problems. It was a good plan because the rich white northerners got to keep the Southern whites down and kept the blacks whom they despised down for over a hundred years. It still goes on to this day. At the end of the day that war was over what type of government white men wanted. I am sorry to say that blacks were simply treated a pawns in a political game of chess.
Posted by ( ewoman ) on April 21, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Hi Cosmo - what about the American Revolution? If it weren’t for traitors, this country wouldn’t exist in the first place. They also displayed “armed insurrection” but it was against Britain. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of museums dedicated to that “traitorous cause.” If George Washington’s men had packed up their tents and gone home (and many tried), we might be under another flag. Thank goodness the north fought this battle against slavery during the Civil War. I believe that any relic from this war is a reminder that our history of slavery is nothing to be proud about, but - like the holocaust - we need reminders to never commit that crime against humanity again. People who display the Confederate flag proudly are another matter altogether (this activity isn’t limited to the south, btw). I hope someday those folks find a way into this century.