Finding my inner confederate on the Civil War trail

Until very recently I was far more interested in, and knew much more about, the English Civil War of the 17th century than the American one of the 19th.  Blame those sexy Cavalier hats and bucket top boots.  Sure, I knew the basics of my native conflict.  I had visited all the Lincoln sites in Springfield, Illinois, on multiple school trips and was dimly aware that a German-born ancestor fought on the Union side.  I was just never that captivated.

Nor did I ever think of myself as from the South.  The reply of most English people, when discovering I'm from St. Louis, is:  "oh, you're Southern".  I patiently explain that Missouri was a border state, and St. Louis likes to think of itself as highly cultured and cosmopolitan, identifying far more with the East Coast than anything below it.

After this trip, I'm re-thinking all of that.  North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland are steeped in Civil War sites.  The more I saw and learned, the more interested I became.  And as I looked at the culture around me, I began to realise that my home town's assumption that columns added sophistication to the front of every house, my aunt's nickname of "Sis", my grandmother's panoramic plantation-scene wallpaper in the dining room and my mother's insistence upon having a magnolia grandiflora in front of the house was ... well ... Southern.  This holiday was turning into a voyage of discovery, accompanied by a soundtrack of Alan Jackson and the taste of buttermilk biscuits.

The Civil War stuff started creeping in as we drove from the Shenandoah to Washington D.C.  The names on the map evoke major conflicts:  The Wilderness, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville.  My husband the Brit knows even more about the American conflict than I do about the English, and spent most of the drive talking about it.  (Helped by the fact that he'd been here before, on a trip with Army mates studying military history and strategy.)  Piers spins a good a good battlefield tale, and as we approached Washington I was ready for more.

Time for Ford's Theatre (already discussed in the 18.5.12 entry), where the set-up to the climax of Lincoln's murder is the long, horrible story of conflict, explained well in the basement museum.  I hadn't remembered that Lincoln's entire administration was spent at war.  Seven states seceded between his election and inauguration, and the poor man was assasinated just five days after Lee surrendered, but before the entirety of the Confederate army had laid down its arms.  That's one hell of a tragedy.

Just outside of Washington we visited Manassas, or Bull Run, site of two battles.  The first was the war's opening of the war, when nobody was taking it seriously, both sides thought it would be over quickly and civilians drove out from Washington to picnic and watch the action.  By the second go-round, the bloody and grim reality had set in.  Piers is particularly fascinated because the first conflict was fought looking back to old-fashioned Napoleonic strategy.  Just 13 months later, new military technology had changed battle tactics completely.  (This may sound boring, but if you're walking around with him, it's actually pretty cool.)  Even without the benefit of your own private military expert, you'll get drawn into the story through the displays and films in the visitor centres and the information boards around the fields.  And if you're not into the battle, it's a lovely walk through fine landscape.  

I was interested enough to email Dad as soon as we got home.  Was that ancestor of ours here?  Yup.  Great-great-grandfather Martin Scherstuhl.  Born April 1, 1839 in Wahlen, Germany, died March 6, 1933 in St. Louis.  Joined Company E, 2nd Regiment, New Jersey Infantry on May 28, 1861.  His first battle was at Manassas three months later.  He was back for second Bull Run in August 30, 1862.  After learning so much about those battles, and the others, I wondered just what kind of a man my ancestor was after the war, and how scarred he must have been from seeing all that death.  I'll never know, but the statistics lead to some dark imagining.

Having seen the beginning of the war in Virginia, we saw its end in North Carolina.  Lee's surrender is what most people know about, but much of the Confederate army was still active under General Joseph Johnston.  He and the Union General Sherman met at a small farmhouse called Bennett Place that happened to be half way between their two encampments.  Today, it's a visitors'  centre, a couple of log cabins, some monuments and woodland in suburban Durham.  

In a humble house borrowed from the resident farmers, the two generals ignored the politicians, treated each other as gentlemen and hammered out the definitive peace that actually ended the war.  The visitors' centre and guides do a fantastic job of bringing this little-known story and its central players to life.  As an indication of just how successful those negotiations were, Sherman and Johnston became lifelong friends.  Sherman died first.  Johnston attended the funeral in the pouring rain, refused to put on his hat in a mark of respect to his friend, and followed him to the grave days later thanks to pneumonia.  

While drinking in all this history, I was also enjoying the style of the people around me.  Laid back, cheerful, welcoming and gracious.  From Virginia ham to biscuits and gravy to cornbread to red velvet cake, I was thinking how much I liked the food.  (Pushing aside, for the moment, the reality that only a day spent in a field picking cotton was going to justify the combined calorie and fat count.)  Those wide porches, porch swings and columns make for a stunning house, I thought.  By the penultimate day of vacation, while laying in a hammock under a massive magnolia dotted with waxy flowers the size of a toddler's head, I raised my Kindle towards the B&B's WiFi and downloaded "Gone With The Wind."  Really, it had to be done.  If only there had been some nice house boy in white gloves to bring me a mint julep, the scene would have been perfect.

I'm glad that my great-great-grandfather fought to preserve the Union.  I think I now have a bit more of an idea of what the other side was fighting for, and an appreciation of the good elements of Southern cultural differentiation that have been preserved.  And I'll now admit it:  the American Civil War is really interesting.  Even without the impressive hats.