Thank you all for being out here today, and
I hope when you think back on this talk today you’ll associate it with March 1st being
tomorrow, so I sorta helped bring in the new month which leads to spring. Yeah, and the masters of course will confirm
that it’s the spring, but this is the talk which starts the matriculation, so. Today we’re going to be talking about the
monuments on the battlefield, but with a creative twist to it all. And I’ve got some really good slides for
you. I think you’ll have fun, it’s very creative,
the talk is. It has a few mind benders in it, so at the
end there will be a few bewildered looks in the audience, but hopefully not. We’re gonna have a really good time, and
I feel really upbeat, and we’re just gonna have a good time. And, as we go through this topic, notice that
my subtitle is entitled, “Removing the Blinders.” And when you think about blinders, you tend
to think of a horse having blinders, and there’s variations on blinders, but blinders keep
a horse from being able to see peripherally during a battle, or crossing a bridge so that
they don’t panic. Blinders can be intentional, non-intentional,
blinders, in the field of history, block us from seeing the obvious. And I try to work all the time to ask myself,
“Where are the blind spots? What am I missing?” And when you’re doing history, practicing
history, the job of a new history student, for instance, in college, is, they’re given
the task that out in the future, they should look for gaps in the storyline. Gaps in the field. And then, it becomes their mission to fill
that gap. And blinders, once those blinders are taken
off, you can see the gaps and then it’s easier to fill them. But you have to think outside of the paradigm. You have to think non-traditionally, and some
of you know that I like to do that. So, blind spots then, blind spots and blinders,
from a historian standpoint, then has to do with something that’s obvious, right under
your nose, it’s there all along, but you were stuck in a paradigm and not able to see
it. And so, what I’m gonna try to do today,
without being pretentious, is try to take some blinders off, ok. So that you see the monuments very different. And we’ve got several to go through, and
some creative analysis, and we’ll have some fun along the way. But let’s just jump right into it, and you’ll
have to decide which one was the best, and which one was the worst. I’m enjoying doing each one of them, but
this one is a doozy to begin with, and it is the High Water Mark Monument. All of you have seen the High Water Mark Monument,
right? Ok. And if we were to take off the blinders and
we were to really see it, and see it with its layers of meaning, indeed those layers
are there, and they’re deep. The High Water Mark Monument is an open book. And when you look at an open book, on a battlefield
or on a cemetery or wherever an open book is presented amongst other statues and other
monuments, an open book always means one thing. It means an authoritative word. Authoritative word. An open book, in monumentation always means
authoritative word. Now, if that book is on a podium, a lecturn,
or an alter, then it is, there is a divine meaning behind that authoritative word. A podium, a lecturn, or an alter that holds
up a book means there is a divine meaning, and in the United States, there tends to be,
especially in the 19th century, an Evangelical twist to the whole thing, if there is a divine
meaning. You’ll notice, that I put, in the lower
right hand corner, an alter, an ancient altar, ancient people sacrificed on altars. Altars have to do with sacrifice, they have
to do with slitting the throat of a lamb, or a bull, or killing an animal, in exchange
for sins, transgressions of a people. So an altar has to do with blood sacrifice. So you, this is a serious message. The book is sitting on a lectern, at the least,
and on a blood sacrifice altar, at most. Now, as we look closer, we need to know what
this, this is saying to us, because it’s a divine, authoritative word that we need
to hear. So as we look closer at it, we’ll notice
in the upper right hand an overturned ear of the page. And when you, when you’re reading and you
turn the ear and pinch the ear of the page that you’re reading in a book, what does
that imply usually? A bookmark. Bookmark, you don’t have a bookmark with
you so you wanna make sure, if something needs your attention right then, you wanna be able
to return to that page without any lost time so you bend the ear. If we wanna give a solid word to that for
a memorial, it would be memory. A turned ear on a page, on a monument book,
a memorial book, always means memory. So you never want to forget this page. Ahh, this is getting more interesting. This is a divine authoritative word, potentially
on an altar of sacrifice, and a page is marked that we should never forget, we should always
remember, ok. As the drama builds, we look closely at it,
and it’s a book, it’s a book, that has multiple pages to it, but it’s opened to
July 3rd, 1863 to Pickett’s Charge, Battle of Gettysburg. And so, if we look back, page one would be
Big Bethel, First Manassas, some of the earlier battles of the war in 1861. In 1862 we have Antietam and Shiloh and so
forth. We have Fredericksburg. Towards the end of the war we have the whole
1864 campaign, Spotslyvania, Wilderness. At the end we have Appomattox. But the book is permanently marked, to never
be forgotten, to 1863, to July 3rd, and to Pickett’s Charge. So as we look even closer, the deeds are spelled
out for that day. And on the left side, are all the deeds of
Confederate battalions and divisions that made the attack known as Pickett’s Charge,
or, at the time, Longstreet’s Assault. And on the far right page, are all the deeds
in defense of Cemetery Hill, carried out by the Union Army. Now, if this is a divine, authoritative message,
and if we put an American, Evangelical twist to this, the Book of Revelations says, in
the Final Judgement, the populations, the entire world, will be divided into two segments. Those on the left and those on the right. Those on the left will be cast into outer
darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is a serious message you see. And on the far, on the right, will be those
that enter thy good and grateful servant. The divine, authoritative word that we find
in this book, that’s upon an altar, that’s ear pinned to a page that we should never
forget, is not a reconciliation message. It’s a message that the Confederates are
permanently on the wrong side of history. Ok. And, and, right. When you dig deeper and look at the deeper
meanings, that’s what it’s telling us here. I’ll add one more aspect to it, as we try
to dig deeper, and that is the term, “High Water Mark of the Rebellion.” That’s a disrespect in the greatest sense,
because, did you know the official, government title for the war is not the American Civil
War, or as, during the Spanish-American war in 1898, they like to call it The War of the
Late Unpleasantness, and then there are a host of other titles. But, the official title of the war, in the
official government paperwork is The War of the Rebellion, which denies the side of the
Confederacy ever existed. I did a talk at Fredericksburg when I worked
there in the late 80’s and I did a presentation in the auditorium, and I talked about Confederate
nationalism, and I struck a chord, a vibe, that ran deeply in the room, that I didn’t
realize was there. There were people that immediately rejected
the notion of Confederate nationalism, because, to recognize that the Confederates were a
nation, is to call into question the official name of the war. So John Bachelder, who designed this monument,
and dedicated it in the early 1890’s, is telling us, that, that, there was a divine
judgement here, and the rebellion essentially ended here, or the beginning of its end was
here. Now there’s another way of looking at the
same set of monuments, we could look at it, and I’ve already hinted and alluded towards
this, that it’s an altar of liberty. That the arrangement, where there’s the
lectern, or the altar, and then the open book, the two cannons, the triangular cannonballs
that used to be there, and the eclectic mix of monuments in the background, along with
the copse of trees surrounded with an iron fence, to memorialize the trees as a symbolic
aiming point of Pickett’s Charge. All of that, that whole arrangement, put together
by John Bachelder, the first official historian of the battlefield, and an artist, and a cartographer. Bachelder is designing, with the placement
of all of the above, an altar of liberty, in the true sense that the French would have
presented it in their artwork, in the 1790’s, with the French Revolution. So if we look to the far left of the screen,
we see Jean Jacques Rousseau, who’s often referred to as the father of the French Revolution
and the father of Western, essentially, the father of Western civilization, because his
book, The Social Contract, became the text for the French Revolution. It summarized the whole notion that all men
are created equal, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, all the
things we hold dear, near and dear to our hearts, he summarized in a book called The
Social Contract, which sent the 19th century into, into revolution. Essentially over ideas of social justice and
all men are created equal. So, there he is deified at the top of your
screen, top left, and then there is an interesting medley of artifacts all around at the base
of it. And, so, let’s take a look at some of these. You have, in the center, you have a tree of
liberty, and next to that tree of liberty, you have a fisc of pikes.Within the fisc of
pikes, you have a liberty pole, with that, a toboggan cap on top of it, a fez cap of
sorts, that would be considered a liberty cap. You have the loyal dog, if I can find him
in there, but the loyal dog is here. On, on this, by the way, this is an altar
to liberty, and then you have maidens, over to your right. They represent purity, they represent virtue,
they represent the ideals, the virtues that democracies aspire to. You have a sans-culottes, in the lower part
of the screen here, he represents that the French Revolution elevated into the middle
class. You have a soldier standing on guard and an
artillery piece, can you all see those things back there? And when Matt Housch sends this out on YouTube
he will have access to these slides directly, so they’ll show up clearly, out there in,
in Internet Land, but hopefully you can see them now. Now, when you have a fisc of pikes, a fisc
of pikes represents a stockade, a stockade that has instruments there, that has weapons
there so there can be an instant defense, to any challenge to liberty. The liberty pole, which appears on a lot of
monuments on this battlefield, usually it’s in the hands of Lady Liberty. But, this liberty pole, would be a pole that
would be driven in the ground, to represent a rally place where people would come and
talk about their grievances with whoever was oppressing them, like someone might gather
around a street lamp today, or at the corner of the mall or the Target or the Wal-Mart. And there’s a meeting place, a breakfast
place, that they meet and talk about what’s going on in their lives. In Massachusetts for instance, in Boston,
there was a liberty tree, and in the French Revolution, American Revolution, there were
liberty trees. But, if you didn’t have a tree, there was
a makeshift tree by just sticking a pole in the ground, and that’s where you could have
your round discussion of liberty. Slaves, in antiquity, had to have their heads
shaved, so not only like the Jews during World War 2 and the Holocaust, they wore the Star
of David, so they stood out, they couldn’t intermingle in public without being easily
spotted. Slaves in antiquity, ancient Rome, people
like Spartacus and others had to have their hair shaved, so when they were out in public
they were recognized as slaves. Well if they were manumitted, or freed, they
wore this cap, this liberty cap, that allowed their hair to grow in, while they could still
intermingle with everyone in disguise. So, the artists during the French Revolution,
the revolutions all throughout the 1800’s, used that cap atop the pole to mean all of
the above. There’s a laurel wreath there too that has
to do with victory. You know, don’t rest on your laurels, you’ve
heard that before. And, so, the pikes are a surrounding defense
of the liberty pole, the liberty cap, and there’s a liberty tree to enforce all of
the above. There’s a bright light in the background. This is common to an artwork related to the
French Revolution. Hold questions, I’ll take them at the end. I have a lot to do, and I’ve gotta keep
moving. And the bright light that you see… yes,
did you want to comment on the bright light? If we could dim the lights then we could all
see better. Yes, would someone dim the lights over there,
thank you. Ahh, is that better? Yes. Thank you sir. Thanks for continuing to impress me on that. I needed to hear that. Ok, and the bright light that we see in the
upper right-hand corner has to do with the light of social justice being shined on people
for the first time, because the letter of the law, that is the code of law, is being
enforced, rather than tyrant’s mood swings. And so, that’s the altar of liberty, and
if you go across the battlefield here at Gettysburg, you see similar arrangements, but none more
distinct than at High Water Mark. You have the artillery pieces. You ever wonder why there is two artillery
pieces sitting there? Bachelder is trying to talk about the defense
of liberty. The copse of trees, in his mind, are likely
the tree of liberty. The iron fence is likely the fisc of pikes. And the monuments that you see in the background
are the monuments that you would see in the background related to a throwback to antiquity
and everything that had to do with the classics and to do with original democracy in ancient
times, ok. And, so, we see, I told you this was gonna
be deep, ok. There’s a lot to, or later on I’ll remember
I didn’t say this or that, but let’s keep it moving then. I tell my students, that redundancy is a good
thing. So there’s a few of you that’ve heard
me talk about the Soldier’s National Monument. I, I’m gonna switch it up a little bit and
talk about the figures at the base of the monument. I’ll keep it moving. I won’t go in as depth as much for those
that’ve been out there with me in the field. But the Soldier’s National Monument, sits
roughly where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, in the center of the Civil War section
of graves of the National Cemetery. It was dedicated in 1869, about six years
after Lincoln’s speech, and we see Lady LIberty there at the top, but we’ve talked
about her a lot in the past if you’ve been on my talks and programs. Let’s talk more about the people at the
base of the monument. At the base of the monument we have four figures,
We have War and HIstory, and then there are two more figures you’ll be introduced to
shortly. On the far left we have War. Now, War in a classic, traditional classic
sense, in a, in a, a pure, Romantic monument. Romantic as that in Neoclassicism are the
words that would be used to describe this kind of sculpture. But, as we, as we look at Randolph Rogers’
sculpture here of War, Rogers played around with the ideal of what a Roman war figure
would look like. He would normally have a brush on top of a
helmet and he would have a cape if we were to see him in full color it would be a red
cape, and he would be the god of war, Mars, in the Roman tradition. Neoclassicism, which is a form of art, which
prevailed from about the 1750’s all the way up until the 1900’s, and there’s still
elements of it out there today. Neoclassicism played around with the traditional
ancient figures, and would put modern twists on them. What we have here is a modern soldier representing
the ancient god of War. And notice that he’s lending his left hand
in the direction of History, and she’s listening. And her name, if we were to go with the traditional
word, it would be Clio. Have you ever heard of a cliometrician? That’s a form of history that involves mathematics,
quantitative history, and the sorts. Graphs and charts that you would see, that
have to do with mathematical equations in a history book, is called cliometrician work. It’s named after the goddess of history,
Clio. She’s also a muse. Muse comes from the Greek word ruminate. Muse is the word from which we get the English
transliteration ruminate, which means she’s thinking on the things he has to say to her. And notice she has a quill in her hand and
she’s writing. Notice what’s under her left foot, and what,
maybe some of you can notice, what this is, or see what this is. What’s under her left foot? A book. Books. She’s written about history, prior to this
war. But there’s a new chapter being added, by
someone who symbolically represents the Civil War, ok. And he’s sharing all the information, presumably
about the Battle of Gettysburg and before and after. And so she’s adding another chapter. If you were to look at her from different
angles, on one side of her chair is a relief that has a pyramid and on the other side broken
columns and pilasters. It has to do with the similar arrangement
that you saw at the altar of liberty. Those common designs and themes appear on
the side of her chair. And then, there’s Plenty and Peace. These are traditional names from antiquity,
Plenty and Peace. But, if we were to look at them through a
modern lens, she more closely represents who? She’s got a cornucopia in her hand, filled
with fruits and vegetables. Mostly, for the most part, it’s produce. For the most part, it looks like wheats and
grains of sorts, and so she represents agriculture. And he represents what? Notice the mechanic wheel. Industry, and he’s a mechanic. And, and, the two together then, what Randolph
Rogers, the sculptor is saying to us, is that, the two original visions for this country,
of agriculture, as proposed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and Alexander’s proposal
of what the country should look like, industry, and the life of the mechanic. That these two parallel, juxtaposed worlds,
can co-exist under the national government. And so, this national monument, then, pulls
together four figures, tells us that they can live in harmony. I want you to notice, on the side of her chair,
a violin. A violin is symbolic for harmony. And so, the right, the sculptor’s telling
us, these two can live side by side in harmony. There’s much, much more I want to tell you
about, but, I wanna keep it moving. Now, within the cemetery itself, the Civil
War section of the cemetery, there’s the William Saunders design of circle shaped graves. And so, there are eighteen sections all together. These are all Northern states. There are some Confederates sprinkled throughout
the midst, but not by design. And the states that sponsored the creation
of the cemetery sent burial committees here. Their governors would send these committees
to help, not only with the clean-up, but with the burials, and then to help William Saunders
with the design that would transfer from paper, pencil and paper, to the actual battlefield. And, so what Saunders decided to do, was to
bury the soldiers in a series of circles. And circles have a distinct meaning. Now I go into this a lot more in depth when
I go into the field, but we’ll just keep it simple here because of what’s on the
plate still to come. Circles mean what? As we dig deeper and think deeper? Eternity. Eternity, right, there’s no beginning and
no end. Alpha and omega. Unlike a square, that has beginning and ending
points, theoretically, four points in a square, there is a stop and starting. With a circle, if it’s done correctly, you
can’t see a beginning and an end, so it has to do with eternity, immortality, infinity. Ooh, I see a hand back there, go ahead. Everyone’s place is equal. Equality, very good. How many of you have heard of King Arthur
and the Knights of the Round Table? Right? Whether you like it or not, if you invite
someone over for dinner, and everyone goes to sit down, it may never be spoken, but whoever
chooses to sit at the head of the table, is sending a nonverbal message. Squares, you know, if you have a square table,
a rectangle table, sitting at the head of the table sends a, squares and rectangles. If you’ve ever heard of organizational charts
at work, or, men, NCAA basketball bracketology, and women of course too, squares denote hierarchy,
an organizational chart. And, one end of a table, then, can mean head
of the table. Circles eliminate all of that, don’t they? So we have equality, eternity, immortality,
and we have unity. You know, if you have a wedding ring on, unity. And so, circles, then, are intentionally put
there, to represent all of the above. Now, there’s a painting, you notice I like
to mix in Classicalism in with the Civil War era, so we’re gonna do that now. There’s a famous painting by Raphael called
The School of Athens, and, it shows, the focal point of the painting, is Aristotle and Plato,
walking out into a court together, into the lyceum where they’re about to teach. And, so, Plato is the elder, Aristotle is
the student. As they’re walking they’re talking, and
Raphael wants you to notice, that Plato is pointing up, with one finger, and Aristotle
is pointing out with five digits. And, one, pointing up to one means he’s
concerned with oneness, and unity. Raphael is telling us, Aristotle, by holding
out five digits, is interested in the many. You know, he invented the sciences, by the
way, the seven sciences, which are the foundation of primary and secondary education. So, humor me for a minute, let’s all hold
up one finger, say unity. “Unity.” Now hold out five digits and say many. “Many.” Unity. Many. Ok, and so that’s what we have here in the
design, we have unity, and we have many. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. Ok, so think of that when you’re out there. And if we wanna dig deeper, we wanna look
deeper, if we wanna take the blinders off, there’s something else that’s going on
her too with Saunders. By the way, I’m married to an artist, you’ve
all heard that a number of times. Artists love for you to interpret these things. I think, you can go a little bit too far,
admittedly. Robert Frost wrote a poem, once, about some
people going into the woods, an individual wandering into the woods. And, and, so a class was held shortly after
that poem came out. They were studying this poem, and they wrote,
someone wrote, from the class, “Mister Frost, are you talking about suicide there?” He had, he said, “I don’t know what you’re
talking about.” It never entered his mind to talk about suicide. “A Walk in the Woods” had nothing to do
with suicide. But the idea is, artists want you to think
like this, and sometimes we hit the jackpot. And, as you look at the circle symbolism,
we see, what looks very much like an amphitheater. A Greek amphitheater, or, in Rome, a forum. And, so, there’s this grand cloud of witnesses,
if you will, around a central stage, for eternity, ok. Now, General Longstreet’s Equestrian, this
is not gonna be the focus of our program here. But, there was a lot of bantering after the
war, to put an equestrian monument to General Longstreet on the battlefield. You all know that story very well. And there was a groundbreaking, in July of
1941, to dedicate a monument, this was on the eve of World War II now, out on South
Confederate Avenue, on the southern end of the battlefield. Just south of the Round Tops. Well World War II came along, and everyone’s
attention shifted to that. After the war, the whole idea for a Longstreet
monument, the momentum had died, and it would not continue again, until the 1990’s. The monument that we have to General Longstreet
now, on West Confederate Avenue, was put there in 1998 for the 135th anniversary, and it
was done by Gary Casteel. It has, it’s not, it was not the same movement
that you see portrayed here. Well, when that movement died, the ground
where Longstreet’s monument was to be placed, was still approved for a monument. But it would take twenty-four years, before
a monument was finally placed there. And it would be the Soldiers and Sailors Monument,
and it was placed there in 1965. It was done by an artist named DeLue. And the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, I want
you to notice as you look at it, that it’s quite in contrast to the General Longstreet
design monument. The General Longstreet monument was to, first
off, a great man, not to a common soldier. Secondly, the difference in the monument that
was placed there versus the one originally to be placed there, is, whereas, there was
all kinds of discussion about Longstreet and a sunrise attack. And whether he attacked early enough in the
day and all of those war, post-war arguments, there’s no ambiguity here about going forward
or not going forward. Notice, the soldier is running forward, into
battle. Now, if you were to look closely, at the monument,
it has thirteen states on it. Three middle states, this would be Missouri,
Kentucky, and Maryland, these would be border states, are included in that thirteen number. So, the Confederacy would claim thirteen all
together. And on the base of it, also, on the reverse
side, is the name, Walter Williams. And, now there’s been some debate in recent
years whether his name belonged to the monument or not. But at the time, in 1965, when DeLue had this
monument dedicated, Walter Williams was conceived throughout the old Confederacy, as the last
surviving veteran, to have, to have lived and eventually died. And, to understand the Soldiers and Sailors
Monument, through the Confederate soldier, you also have to blend that with the notion
of Walter WIlliams recent death. And, so what the artist DeLue is telling us
here, is, he’s portraying Walter WIlliams as a single embodiment, a single representative
of all the Confederate soldiers, common soldiers, that fought during the war. And the last one having passed, then becomes
the impetus for creating this monument. Now, it’s a little complex. I’m dealing with two themes, the Longstreet
theme. The notion that Longstreet is controversial,
was there a hesitation, a sunrise attack, or was there not, having a soldier on the
ground, running forward, eliminates that discussion altogether. In contrast, the Federals, this is neither
good, bad, or in between, but I want you to see these things as we take the blinders off. On the Union side, the G.A.R. or the Grand
Army of the Republic, the V.F.W. of the day, the Union Veterans’ Association, they chose
to honor their last surviving veteran, Albert Woolson, sitting down. That’s quite in contrast to the last Confederate
veteran, in a full gut sprint. So don’t think that there wasn’t a lot
of discussion how to portray Walter Williams, their last veteran. So, there’s a lot of movement, going forward
into battle, no hesitation, and there’s a celebration of youth. There’s also a celebration of the common
soldier. I alluded to this already. Some of you know, that in the 1960’s, in
academia, there began the New Social HIstory, which emphasized common soldiers, common people,
everyday people, ordinary people, and moved away from the movers and shakers of the world. And, so, there was a celebration of the races
and the ethnicities, the genders, the everyday people, versus heroes, who were celebrated
prior to the New Social History. Part of the New Social History academia refers
to that history as “Wig HIstory.” So from the 1950’s back, it celebrates the
heroes, the great men. You know, the Carnegies, the Rockefellers,
the Henry Fords, the Nicholas Teslas, these great individuals. The 1960’s, represents, at least in education,
a huge, sharp shift away to the common man, the common soldier. You’ve heard of the book Johnny Reb and
Billy Yank, ok. So they become really popular in the 1960’s,
and DeLue is emphasizing the common soldier. So as we look, hopefully, then, at this last
Confederate soldier, or embodiment of Confederate soldiers, in one monument, we notice that
there are some toes visible. This is an allusion to the Confederate sacrifice,
and they endured and perservered, not always with the best equipment. DeLue wants us to see that the soldier is
climbing a wall, well you need to look no farther than the army of Northern Virginia’s
flank marker nearby, to see a stone wall that they would have had to climb. Trostle Lane, at the base of the hill, is
another stone wall that they would’ve had to climb. So those that have ears to hear and eyes to
see, the sculptor DeLue is telling us, that these soldiers were not only going forward,
but they had to endure with, not necessarily, the best logistics, and, they were climbing
walls. Now, intermingled with that wall, is a plant. The only plant that can survive on a rock,
on the face of a rock is a, is ivy. And, and, ivy, that can climb up the side
of a stone wall, for instance, can survive under the barest conditions. It can survive without any deep roots, it
can survive living off the face of a rock. And so, there’s an implication there, that
the Confederate soldier, being honored after the last one just died, the last surviving
Confederate veteran who just passed, there is a reflection on the Confederate soldier,
having all these attributes. And enduring friendship with each other. The vine intermingled with the stones talks
about the tie that binded them, for over a century. But Soldiers and Sailors Monuments have a
broader context to them. And, and, that is, in the 1890’s, that is,
from 1893 to 1900, that was the heyday of something known as the City Beautiful Movement. I may say something about that once more,
before we’re done,. But the City Beautiful Movement, had to do
with going in to poor sections of a city, decrepit sections of a city, places where
there were dark tenement houses, where there were robberies, frequent crime. Clearing those places out, and putting in
monuments, dedicated to soldiers and sailors of the American Civil War. Now why 1893 to 1900? I’ll give you one reason now. One reason is, the 1890’s represent the
height of the G.A.R.’s influence, in Congress. As some of you remember, Vietnam veterans
commanded a great deal of respect and attention in the 1970’s and the 1980’s. They were at the height of their political
influence. You’ll recall, in the 2004 election, for
president, at the national level, there was a debate between swift boats, and time in
the Air Force Reserves. And then, in the 2008 election there was more
talk about Vietnam, one of the candidates had been a P.O.W. in Vietnam, notice, in the
last election, there was no mention of Vietnam. That’s because the Vietnam era, has lost,
the veterans are old enough now, their concerns are not represented to the same level. It’s probably why there are some other concerns
related to veterans now is because they’ve passed their peak. They’ve passed their prime in having political
influence in Congress. Well the height of the political influence
of the G.A.R., the V.F.W. of the day, if you will, for the Federals, their veterans’
organization in the 1890’s. That’s where all your Medal of Honors come
out in the 1890’s. That’s why Gettysburg National Military
Park and several others, Antietam, Shiloh, come into existence in the 1890’s. And City Beautiful Movements often featured
as a centerpiece after they cleared out whatever they wanted to clear out, and then they wanted
to design around it, featured a Civil War monument to Soldiers and Sailors. And it usually had four faces to it, infantry,
artillery, cavalry, and signalmen, depending on the four sides. And there might be some variation on that. You know, radio doesn’t really take off
until the 1920’s, so in the 1890’s nickelodeons start to come into existence in the 1890’s,
early movie houses in the 1890’s, 1900’s. But people did not rely on visual technology
and audio technology in the 1890’s. Communities stayed put, for the most part,
and a visual reinforcement of a monument instilled, in the public who had to pass it’s fountains
every day, and look up at its beautiful sculpture. It instilled in them civic pride, it gave
them an example to live by. And, and those things, over time, would make
better citizens of people. This was the example, this was the visual
aid of how you were supposed to conduct yourselves as citizens. And it was supposed to clean up the cities,
and make people, if the environment is, the overall movement is called Positive Environmentalism. If you clean up the environment, you have
playgrounds, and schools, and bright, airy buildings, then folks in industrial settings
will act and behave and live better, and, and aspire to higher ideals. So Soldiers and Sailors Monuments, have their
birth in cities, in the 1890’s. And the G.A.R. had a lot to do with that. Also, there are Soldiers and Sailors Monuments
in New York and Detroit. There’s one in Allentown, Pennsylvania. There’s a number of them out there, just
keep your eyes and ears open for them. And this is a close up of the one in Indiana. I got a chance to speak at the Civil War Round
Table in Indianapolis a few years ago and they took me downtown to look at this, this
is really special. But you can see up close, we can see some
version of Lady Liberty, and we can also see a slave who’s taking off his shackles. We can see soldiers going into battle. We can see artisans having conversations,
about their lives. So this would be something that people who
lived in a city could walk past every day, and they could hear the water flowing and
see the fountains. And it will remind them, this is what we look
up to, this is what we want our kids to aspire to. City Beautiful: 1893 to 1900. So the Soldiers and Sailors National, Soldiers
and Sailors at Gettysburg Monument is a tie in to all of the above. Are the blinders coming off? Ok. Some of you already knew these things, but
if there’s someone that didn’t, then. Ok. The Eternal Peace Light Memorial. As we look at the Eternal Peace Light Memorial,
on the first day’s battlefield, we know it was dedicated in 1938, the 75th Anniversary. The last great reunion of the veterans, 25,000
people attended. And, as we think about FDR being present and
speaking, and other speeches being given. And the Boy Scouts pushing the veterans around,
and tens of thousands of people. What I also want you to imagine, is a huge
U.S. flag over the shaft of the monument, until the momentous unveiling of the monument,
and the ooh-ing and the ahh-ing and the cheering and the clapping and the crowds when it was
finally unveiled. As you, as you take a closer look, at the
monument, you’ve probably heard these things, but it’s worth repeating. That the base is made from granite from the
state of Maine, and the shaft of dolomite limestone from Alabama, for obvious reasons,
right. There’s a unity that’s taking place at
this last great reunion. Ok. But now let’s go deeper. Let’s take the blinders off even further. And that is, what is, what did Philip Cret,
or Philippe Cret, design the Peace Light to look like? What was his inspiration? And you need to look no further than antiquity,
and go back to one of the original Seven Wonders of the World, as put forward by Plato in his
writings in antiquity. And that would be one of those seven, was
the Lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt. And it was a beacon at night. There’s been theories as to how the light
was projected, but it was likely a huge fire. And there was mirrors used, probably copper
mirrors of sort. And it would cast the light out to see to
keep ships from crashing ashore. Ok, those are the obvious things. So the Peace Light, I could have put up several
slides, but if you go back and look at what artist depictions of the Lighthouse of Alexandria
looked like, over and over and over again, it’s a match with the Peace Light Memorial. And so, what is Philip, or Philippe Cret telling
us, with the Peace Light? Yes, he’s talking about light, he’s talking
about unity, he’s talking about friendship and fellowship between North and South. Those are the common things that you would
hear about and read about. But he’s also telling us something deeper. He’s telling us, that that lighthouse is
not only unity and light to show the way for the future towards harmony between North and
South. But he’s also telling us, that as long as
we remember what happened here, and remember the four years of the Civil War, a light like
this helps us remember that so that our nation doesn’t have a shipwreck again. Really, the, this battlefield exists in the
large part, you know, there’s a lot of reasons why, but one of the underlying reasons why
we have a battlefield that’s part of the National Parks Service is because it’s an
open invitation for people to come, and to remember collectively their past. To discuss, to debate, to civilly argue so
that we prevent this from happening again. This is a reminder, a shipwreck occurs when
we do thus and so and so. And so, so that’s what we have here. And, as we look closer, you can see two ladies,
can you see them there? Ok, now let’s move in closer to them. These two ladies, if, if you study them, these
two ladies are actually two Egyptian ladies. And they’re referred to, in antiquity, in
Ancient Egypt, as the “Two Ladies.” They’re just called the “Two Ladies.” And so, Philippe Cret is showing us the Two
Ladies, now who were the Two Ladies? The Two Ladies were representative, in Ancient
Egypt, of the upper Nile, Upper Egypt. Upper Nile which is Lower Egypt and Lower
Nile which is Upper Egypt. Let’s just stick with north and south. They, they, in deity form, they were never
combined together, never mixed together. They were actually kept separate, meaning
that Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt remained separate, but they worked in harmony. And so, Philippe Cret is making a correlation
between Ancient Egypt, and North and South, living together and harmony. Now notice that one of them is carrying the
laurel wreath. Don’t rest on your laurels. Presumably then, that would be the Northern
half of the equation. The Northern half of the two ladies. That would be the North. But, notice that the Southerner, has her back
with a shield. And the, at the bottom of the screen, we can
see a falcon. And any time we see a falcon in Ancient Egypt,
it means Horus. Horus was portrayed as a falcon, symbolically
in mummification and burial ceremonies and in public ceremonies. He would wear a falcon’s head. And then, the headdress, for his casket, if
you will, was actually a bird’s head. Horus was a falcon. The falcon then, is symbolic of the Pharaoh,
in the flesh, ruling over Egypt. And so, we have here, a ruler holding up,
actually holding up the light, that’s being projected there. So we don’t have any ordinary falcon there,
we have Horus, the Pharaoh, showing the way. Oh! A falcon in Ancient Egypt, through Horus,
also means light, it means spirit, and it means freedom. The Pennsylvania Memorial. Now the basics of the Pennsylvania Memorial
is that, at least some form of it, was dedicated in 1910, and it’s, it’s sculptor was Cottrell
and we know that it has over 34,000 Pennsylvania names on the monument. Alright, and those are some of the basic facts. It’s crowned by Nike, the angel of victory. It’s the biggest monument on the battlefield. Those are quick, quippish statements that
we give to new visitors on the battlefield, on a regular basis. But now, that’s not what this program is
about. This program is about going deeper, right? It’s about taking the blinders off. Ok, and so as we look closer at the Pennsylvania
Memorial, it looks strikingly like the Arch of Titus. Arch of Titus in, in Ancient Rome, circa 82
A.D. is the inspiration for a lot of archways throughout Europe. In Russia and Spain and various other places,
the Arc de Triomphe itself is modeled on the Arch of Titus, it’s on of the most famous,
if not the most famous, arches in the world. And the Pennsylvania Memorial then, as you
look at it carefully, and we’ll look at it up close, mirrors it, in a number of ways. Now, you have Lincoln, and Governor Curtin,
and you have other famous Pennsylvanians around the monument. But, if you look at the Arch of Titus, there’s
a space here, where a statue was probably set, before it was defaced. And those kind of things happened during the
Middle Ages. If you look at it, also close, you’ll notice,
an archway, that has a keystone. When I worked at Independence Hall in the
1980’s in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, one of the points
we made, was Pennsylvania, among the original thirteen colonies and thirteen states, was
called the Keystone State because it was centrally located. And the, some of the early national Congresses
met there as did George Washington, the president, lived there in Philadelphia, because it was
centrally located, before Washington D.C. was created. So, Pennsylvania is known historically as
the Keystone State, and so you have that deeper meaning going on here. The archway, let’s veer for just a moment,
and look at the Arch of Constantine. The Arch of Constantine allows us to make
some of the same points, it’s a little bit more elaborate. It has three portals, but if you were to look
at it really close, there are detailed friezes and detailed markings on the cornice. As, as there are famous Pennsylvanians on
the cornice all the way around Pennsylvania Memorial, so did the Arch of Constantine have
these friezes and in addition to that they had statues all around it. The Pennsylvania Memorial of course, has metal
statues. Now let’s go a little bit deeper and a little
bit closer. Let’s go back to the Arch of Titus and the
Pennsylvania Memorial. And so, as we compare them up close, what
I want you to see, is, I want you to grasp the basic concept of what a Roman arch meant. Now, to the Romans, the arch was sacred. You know, if you were to go to Israel today
or you were to go to Greece today, and you were to chop down a fig tree, or an olive
tree, in some provinces, that’s, you’ll be put to death. The olive tree is revered in places like Greece
and parts of the Holy Land. And you can receive capital punishment if
you chop down an olive tree, and in some cases, a fig tree. Well, to the Romans, the thing they loved
and was at the very heart and center of their identity was the arch. You all know about that, don’t you, the
arches that held up the aqueducts that brought in water that allowed them to have cities
in unusual places. The arches that were used to create the Colosseum,
arches that were used to create bridges across water, aqueducts, if you will. Arches, how many of you have seen a Volkswagon
Bug? You know, it’s an arch. Or if you were to go to a fast food restaurant
today and ask for a diet drink, they’ll take the arch on the top, and pop it down. Right. When you invert anything, it’s stronger. That’s the whole notion of trusses when
you build a house, it’s a series of trusses that point up, because it’s hard to take
the point of a truss push it down. The point of the truss then, is a point of
great strength. And the arch is based on that concept. So, the Romans, then, when they wanted to
celebrate great emperors and great victories, they would, every so often, have a public
works project, and build an arch. And so, there are arches archaeologists have
discovered all throughout Ancient Rome that have to do with great victories and battles,
or great leaders, great emperors. Now, the symbolic way of celebrating an arch,
would be, after a great victory, the Roman general who was responsible, would lead his
legions into the city. There would be a parade. The Caesars would make sure that, somehow,
in the midst of the parade, the crowd received bread, oil, olive oil, wine, sort of a social
welfare program, that made everyone feel really good. And then, the celebration over their army
being the finest on the Earth because they had just won a great battle. The prisoners were brought through the streets,
in cages pulled by donkeys and horses, and the crowds would throw vegetables and various
other things at them. They were stingy and smelly, and they were
angry. The apostle Paul mentions in a, one of the
Epistles, that he was imprisoned outside of one of these archways and he could here these
victory celebrations every so often. And he talks about how there were incenses
in the air that was too, that was like a sage that was supposed to effect the crowd and
heighten their impression of the greatness of the Roman army, and everything festival
about the occasion. But he said to those prisoners locked in the
cage, “Those beautiful smells, those wonderful aromas, were horrible to them, and putrid
because they represented, they translated into their brain as death, they were moments
away from being publicly executed.” Those same smells though, breathed in by the
victors, meant, had a wonderful smell, and so then there’s two impressions on the same
thing. And these archways then, if you’re to fully
understand them, they represent a victory of celebration, that’s why the angel of
victory, Nike, is on top. This is a series, the Pennsylvania Memorial,
a series four arches, where victory is celebrated. I suppose, if a Confederate walked through
there in the early 1900’s, the smell would not be as great, figuratively speaking. That’s the point, ok. This is a celebration of Pennsylvania, as
well as a celebration of victory. So, if you need a victory in your life, walk
through there today. Then, if you look even closer at, say the
Arch of Constantine, with the Pennsylvania Memorial, you can see ladies of virtue here,
representing everything that is good and decent. And justice, ok. So, I stuck this in, I debated whether to
do that or not, but. When I was doing a program on East Cemetery
Hill a few years ago, from a Confederate perspective, everywhere that I walked, from the North Carolina
or Louisiana perspective, I could see that archway and I would catch lines of sight suddenly
to it. It would kinda take my breath away. It’s my favorite structure on the battlefield. And, then I was reading in Bill Frassanito’s
wonderful book on early photography, he makes the point that the most photographed structure
on the battlefield, by the photographers that came here, Tipton and Gutekunst and, and Gardner
and O’Sullivan. The photographs that they took, of the buildings
on this battlefield, were disproportionately of this structure. They got carried away with taking a picture
of the Evergreen Cemetery Gatehouse dedicated in 1855 as the entrance, the grand entrance,
to the town’s cemetery. The two most famous sketches of the battle,
arguably are, Alford Ward and Edwin Forbes’ sketch of the Confederates charging up East
Cemetery Hill, and the focal point of both sketches, are, show that archway. Have you all seen those? Ok, of the Evergreen Cemetery Gatehouse. So why is it the most photographed and the
most famous sketched structure on the battlefield? And I could give you several reasons. But, one of them will be, that’s the one
I wanna focus, is that it looks, has an uncanny resemblance, to the Arc de Triomphe, to the
Arch of Constantine, to the arches that exist all throughout Europe. It’s almost like a natural, victory arch. A spiritual victory arch, you know, if you
were, let’s say, at the German Reform Church or the Presbyterian Church, and you were buried
there locally, entering through that archway symbolically meant that you were moving toward
some spiritual victory. You were ascending from this Earth, and so
it was a positive thing. That’s the message here, but you’ll notice
that it has, there are laurel wreaths to victory. There’s an archway, and any time you enter
through an archway in antiquity, it has to do with victory. Isn’t that interesting, the key position
on the battlefield, has an archway in existence, before the battle. Ooh, that’s kinda spooky. Ok. Ok, let’s return to this briefly, the Great
White City idea. What really started the Great White City,
yes it had to do with the G.A.R. being at the height of their powers and commissioning,
and helping to propose Soldiers and Sailors Monuments in cities. But what really kickstarted the whole City
Beautiful Movement, was the Great White City in 1893, in Chicago. When they hosted the World’s Fair there
in Chicago. And people came from all over the world. Now, there was a great fire in Chicago in
1871, so the Great White CIty, in a way, was stating to the world, in a self-conscious
way, Chicago is standing. Like the phoenix we’ve risen out of the
ashes, we’ve been reborn. And Nicholas Tesla experimented with AC/DC
alternating current electricity, so the city lit up at a time when cities were just not
lit up. There was some city lighting occuring in the
1870’s in various places, but, no one had seen anything like this, and it was bright,
and it was white. And if you look carefully, you’ll notice
domes, like the one on the Pennsylvania Memorial. You’ll see the mansard roof, which was so
common in France. I must mention this briefly, what inspired
the Great White City, and ultimately inspired City Beautiful Movement? It was Haussmann’s design of inner city
Paris. He was commissioned, very much indirectly,
through Napoleon the Third. And it was the idea of clearing out the bad
sections of the city. Removing the narrow streets where people would
barricade and fight against the authorities. Create open boulevards, raise civic pride
by putting beautiful white statuary, uplifting monuments. There were fountains, circular fountains and,
and libraries, public buildings of all kinds. Opera houses, art museums, and that whole
notion really started in the 1890’s here in this country. But it was borrowed from Haussmann’s work
in the 1860’s and 70’s over in Paris. Over in Paris they called it the Beaux-Arts
Movement. But, here it was called the City Beautiful
Movement. But you have the whole circular design that
you see in the National Cemetery, which started before the French Revolution, it goes back
to Louis the Fourteenth’s design of Versaille. But, but, so what we see here then, and the
idea is that this stood in strong contrast, not only to the fire, that had destroyed. That everyone had read about when they visited
the city they could see this. That the city had fully come back. But it also represented, in contrast, to the
dingy, dirty, dark tenement houses where a lot of the masses lived in the streets and
where lots of things were unclean. Bright, white, celebrated the exact opposite
of that. That’s very important to understand, in
relation to City Beautiful. The monuments that you see here at Vicksburg,
Chickamauga, that are big, and huge, and have domes, guess where that idea is born? City Beautiful. City Beautiful then took its cues from Beaux-Arts
in France. And so, that’s, a lot of the of the monuments
were placed on the battlefield in the 1880’s and 1890’s and the early 1900’s and they’re
coming from the City Beautiful Movement. So everything’s connected, as we dig deeper. And then, I wanted you to just notice the
context of the design. You have the Pennsylvania Memorial, and then
the First Minnesota Monument, artists and architects always create a mailloux, or a
context for their design, and you can see, as you look in the lower right hand corner,
the Pantheon. And the Pantheon is still the largest standing
dome building that doesn’t have a steel support structure system to it. But in the Pantheon, which is in Rome, in
front of it, it has an obelisk that was designed in the time of Ramses the Second. Ramses the Second was about the time of the
great escape of the Israelites to the Promised Land and the whole Exodus story. So how does it relate here? I want you to see, first off, the context,
in antiquity, of a domed building, with Doric columns, Corinthian and Ionic curls, and achanthuses
and, I want you to see, in front of it an obelisk. And I want you to see that our battlefield
has those same kinds of pairings. Here’s Hexamer’s New Jersey Battery, can
you see, can you see the parallels, can you see the parallels? I should say this too, this is a real eye-opener
if you haven’t heard this one before. Rome, when they conquered the whole world,
they brought those treasures to the city of Rome, to show off in the Colosseum, they would
bring exotic animals in from all over the world, to say, we’re Rome, we control the
world. We can bring in an elephant here, we can bring
in a lion, we can do anything. And, and they transported an obelisk from
the Nile, in Egypt. And the obelisk were markers, like you have
highway markers that tell you how close you’re going to Harrisburg, or in the other direction,
Hagerstown if you’re on 81. There were markers, so when you were travelling
by way of the Nile, you knew what town you were coming upon, what province you were coming
upon. But the obelisk were also ancient sundials. You ever stuck a stick in the sand, let’s
say at the beach, and it cast a shadow on one side or the other, and that, in a crude
way tells you what time of the day it is. It serves as a sundial, how many of you knew
that? Right, so that’s what the City Beautiful
took over Washington, D.C. in that way, and one of the centerpieces is the Washington
Monument, it’s an obelisk. But this obelisk then, some historians believe
is the obelisk of the inspiration for the church steeple. So all throughout this town you see church
steeples. It goes all the way back to taking the obelisk
out of Egypt and placing it there in Rome. And so there we have that kind of relationship,
and I want you to see that relationship exist all over this battlefield in the design. There’s a lot of obelisks on the battlefield. They don’t all necessarily have a sharp
point like this one. But the First Minnesota Monument, really most
of the monuments out there, are obelisks. If you really want to make a comparison fit
closely, take a look at the Illinois Memorial at Vicksburg. Compare it to the Pantheon, it’s amazing
isn’t it. Ok, City Beautiful, 1890’s, the early 1900’s. And then, if you were to look up inside the
Pennsylvania Memorial, you’ll see the oculus. And the oculus, today, is just a steel reinforcement,
inside the dome. But the original, that it was based on, would
have been the one in the Pantheon. And what the Romans did, was they carved into
the stone. Engineers learned that if they carved into
the stone it lessened the what? The weight. Weight, so that a dome structure, and also
built up like an archway, it could stand. And it’s been standing for close to 2,000
years. But the Pennsylvania Memorial is inspired
by that. And there are more comparisons too. We’re down to two more. We have the Virginia Monument, Now, the Virginia
Monument, when you look at it, you can see, you can see several things. But I wanna focus primarily on two. Let me just say, in a broader sense, when
you look at it, you can see a monument, an equestrian monument to General Lee. Ok, you can see, at the base, an artillery,
infantry, an auxiliary, an eclectic mix. Kind of a conglomerate of representative,
of Virginia. You can see the Virginia flag. Now this is kind of an interesting story. In 1913, at the 50th reunion, the cornerstone
was placed here, or a small base was placed here. But the monument wasn’t actually dedicated
with the throng of crowds until 1917. And there were several reasons for the delay. But one of the reasons for the delay was,
there was some hesitation with the G.A.R. with allowing a Confederate flag in the design
of the monument. And so, what was substituted in the time of
the dedication was a north, was a Virginia flag. So if you look at it really close, it’s
the Virginia flag. Now, that would have made it less controversial. If you study the 1938 great reunion, the 75th,
at the Peace Light Memorial, there were speeches given by Southerners there. And they were angry driven speeches about
how they felt they were being denied showing the Confederate flag at different times over
the last thirty years. And so, the Virginia Monument is a standing
example of the debate over the G.A.R. wanting to allow the Confederate flag. Kathy Harrison, the former senior historian,
was here for thirty-eight years, and her research, at least last I spoke with her about this,
she could not find one example of the Virginia flag, in the ranks, in Pickett’s Charge. But, if you were to look at the monument you
would get the impression that the Virginia flag was there. Ok, then we have an equestrian to Lee. But now let’s go a little deeper. It looks an awful lot like the Equestrian
to Lee, dedicated in 1890, on Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia. They look very similar, don’t they? Not exactly, but similar. Ok, and some folks, when they look at the
Virginia Monument, see in it, an inspiration, of the Lee Monument, in Richmond, Virginia,
on Monument Avenue. And Monument Avenue was designed, it was kinda
a Southern version of City Beautiful. And we have a monument to J.E.B. Stuart, to Robert E. Lee, there’s one to
Stonewall Jackson, there’s a modern statue along it today, to Arthur Ashe, the African-American
tennis player. But, along this Richmond version of City Beautiful
if you will, these four trees, four columns of trees, perhaps representing four columns
of Confederate soldiers marching, and then, these Confederate equestrian statues that
you see there. If, and so, what that was designed to do then,
was to create, not only a City Beautiful idea, where high rises would go up, apartment buildings
would go up, churches would come to compliment or be improved to compliment. And you would create this civic pride area. But some folks looked at it a little bit different. And that is, when they look at the Lee Memorial,
Thomas Connolly, and Marble Man, Allen Nolan and Lee, considered, looked at it this way. And that is, they looked at the Lee Memorial
in Richmond, as a revival of the deification, a revival of the lost cause, if you will,
a propelling of the lost cause, a validation of the lost cause, the deification of Lee,
when he it was dedicated in 1890. The lost cause was a post-war explanation
that grew up in the South over a period of twenty-five years after the war through many
articles and books that were written. There were a lot of contributors. But, the canon that was collectively put together
by the 1890’s that we call Lost Cause, talked about why the South lost, what it was really
fighting for. Dismissed the notion that slavery was the
central cause of the war, and several things along those lines. Blamed certain people for loses at certain
battles, like General Longstreet. And, part of Lost Cause also deified Robert
E. Lee. And we see this today, I’m going to be real
specific, we see this in athletics. Someone wins a second or a third trophy, and
then, they take on some other intimidating persona. And so, Lee was deified as all that was good
in the Lost Cause explanation of what the war was fought about. He was the perfect gentleman, this, that,
and the other. Well, to some folks that have criticized Lee
over the years, I mention Connoley and Nolan and others. What they would say, is that it spawned Southerners,
kind of digging their heels in and saying we were right. And then the Lee memoriam, the Lee Monument,
became a place for them to rally and have parades and demonstrations. And, and to talk about why the South was right. So there’s kinda that, some folks would
see a dark side in the Virginia Memorial because they link it, in their memory, to what they
know happened in 1890. Now, maybe, maybe this is unfair to put this
on Lee’s shoulders. Lee was not around for this to happen, but
in 1896, Plessy versus Ferguson was passed by the Supreme Court which said separate but
equal. The notion of separate drinking fountains
and separate restrooms, and so, a dark curtain, if you will, of opportunity, blocking opportunity,
the end of civil rights, once and for all, ended in 1896, until it was revived in the
1960’s. And that seemed to coincide with Monument
Avenue coming into existence. So some people saw, kind of, a darker, uglier
side to this monument. And perhaps that’s unfair to Lee, but when
you’re doing history, you have to present all these things. Some people look at the Lee Memorial and link
it with the one here and link it with the one in Richmond and see, they don’t, they
don’t see anything but positive. All up and down Monument Avenue today, there
are 10k runs, there are Easter parades, I couldn’t resist putting this wonderful creature
in the corner. I knew that would warm somebody's heart. But that’s from an Easter parade, and there
have been Easter parades up and down Monument Avenue. They have a huge marathon there every year. Troops have marched past it. So, in many case, the Virginia Monument, at
Gettysburg, if we link it to the one in Richmond, the Lee Monument in Richmond, there’s a
consistency of pleasant memories. And as I ask you, what you would see, as you
drive past the Virginia Memorial, I’ll tell you this quick story. How many of you have ever heard of Colonel
Sheads? And he taught in the high school system here
in Gettysburg in the 1950’s, 60’s and was a celebrated historian here. Had his hand in a lot of things. And he was a legendary licensed guide. And I got, when I moved here, I got in on
the tail end of that legend and I got to meet him and so on. He told, he was the one that took John F.
Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy around the battlefield, and ok. This is the same person. So if you ever see a picture of the Kennedys
here at Gettysburg, with them is Colonel Sheads. But of the many stories that Sheads told that
still linger, one of them is, he was taking, as a licensed guide, a family around the battlefield. And when they made it to the Virginia Monument,
they stepped out, and he made a comment along the lines of, Lee, and being a traitor to
his country. And I don’t think that he made it to come
out quite like that, but he didn’t mind telling the story time and again. Turns out, these were Virginians that were
in the car. And they told him that he could walk back
to the Visitor’s Center. And he always got a good laugh out of that
too. He learned to laugh at himself. And so, when you’re out there what do you
see? Do you see a romantic hero, a romantic depiction,
a neoclassical depiction of a hero? Or do you see something else? North Carolina, “Farthest to the Front,”
now when you, you’ve all heard of the Gutzon Borglum statue to North Carolina, right? Stop four on the auto tour. And he’s famous for sculpting…. Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore, ok, among other things. And this was dedicated in the 1920’s and
it, it was, made quite an impression. But, as we look at it, yes there’s several
characteristics and attributes about it, that Borglum would want us to take away. About an officer pointing the way, and soldiers
following him and someone holding up the standard, and those kinds of things. But, if we dig deeper, that’s what we’ve
been doing the whole program, taking off the blinders, there’s a lot of, as with the
Soldiers and Sailors Monument, there is a lot of what? Forward motion. Now if you have eyes to see and ears to hear,
that’s a statement that the North Carolinians, didn’t turn and high-tail it, they went
forward. Right? And some of you know, that after the battle,
two newspapers, a Williamsport, Maryland paper, and a Richmond newspaper. Thanks to the telegraph and couriers and so
forth, and express riders, within a few days after the battle, these two newspapers, and
then, subsequently many others, proliferated the story, that the reason the final charge
failed, was because, the Virginians, led by General Pickett, were left down by the North
Carolinians, under General Pettigrew. And I’ve lived in North Carolina and Virginia,
and the rivalry’s played out in collegiate contest. But, you have to know your audience, when
you’re speaking in front of a crowd. And if you have North Carolinians and Virginians,
we don’t know this for sure, so I have to add this emphasis. But, some people believe, because General
Pickett’s report was ordered to be destroyed, Lee read it and, it was. The only reason you would have to destroy
a report, and someone tell you through the chain of command to destroy an after action
report, was because it was too personal. Ok, and he probably implicated people for
failing his Virginians and probably implicated Edward Porter Alexander’s artillery for
running out of ammunition or missing the mark. He probably blamed the North Carolinians on
his left. And there was enough blame, that General Lee
asked him to write another report, and just give the facts. Ok, who deserves the Role of Honor medal,
who, how many rounds were fired, how many casualties, what do the units look like now,
make it non-personal. And, General Pickett’s report, may or may
not have been torn up. There are rumors, LaSalle Corbell claimed
once, his fiance, claimed once that it was still out there. But in any case, he never wrote a second report
that we know of. That’s why, when you go through the official
after action reports that were published in the 1880’s, there isn’t a report from
General Pickett. And that’s why there’s a lot of confusion
as what Pickett’s Charge was doing, as the person that was in charge of it’s report
doesn’t seem to exist. But, we believe Pickett, remember, Lee found
him after the charge, and he was choking down tears and his eyes were welling up, and he
was with the wounded Confederates along Steven’s Run, behind the Spangler Farm, Seminary Ridge
area. And Lee found him and said, “Reform your
division.” He said, “General Lee, I don’t have a
division.” Remember that conversation? Ok, some believe based on everything that
I’ve told you, all the circumstantial evidence, that Pickett talked to a war correspondent,
we would call them embedded reporters today, and unloaded on the North Carolinians. And the two newspapers that soon, a few days
after, reported on the North Carolinians quitting, not going all the way across the charge, across
the fields, is spillage from General Pickett. Well, the problem became so bad within the
Confederate army, of the blame game, that General Lee emphasized, again, it was all
his fault, because ultimately he was responsible. But it was also to start, to stop the squabbling. And he talked to the Confederate Secretary
of War, Seddon, corresponded with the Confederate Secretary of War Seddon, and asked that all
war correspondents be removed from the army, because they were stirring the pot. As a result, the, the North Carolinians were
not able to address these accusations until twenty years after the war. So, in the meantime, the term “Pickett’s
Charge” cemented, crystallized, in the American imagination, with a reunion in 1887, at the
Angle where Virginians were celebrated along with Philadelphians. The North Carolinians could never undo the
damage. That’s why North Carolinians then, and perhaps
to this day, cringe, when you don’t say the Pickett-Pettigrew Charge, or when you
don’t say the Longstreet Assault, which is what it was supposed to be called but the
Virginians eventually captured the story. And so, by the 1880’s there were North Carolinians
that were upset, and it was a captain named Young in the 26th North Carolina that wrote
an article, published throughout the South. Since, it’s been republished in a book by
Jordan. Jordan is a regimental historian for North
Carolina, and we have the Jordan series in our library downstairs. But if you read the article by Young, Young
says that, “the North Carolinians not only didn’t stop, or quit on the Virginians,
but they went further than the Virginians.” And, for validation, he goes one step further
and he said that the furthest North Carolinians were thirty paces beyond the furthest Virginians. So, he adds emphasis to that. So, in 1981, at the 125th anniversary, the
movement had been afoot for some time, a monument had been placed to North Carolina, 26th North
Carolina on Meredith Avenue, first day’s battlefield, which helped build momentum towards
this one, three years later. And, if you stand at the furthest Virginia
monument, inside the Union lines, that would be the Armistead Kill Monument, Wounded Monument,
and you count of thirty paces, it takes you to the North Carolina Monument. And then if you, if you were to look peripherally
you’ll notice that Trent Lott one-bettered everyone with the 11th Mississippi Monument
being placed a little further than the North Carolina monument. So, North Carolina, they had their say 125
years later. So, so Pickett is perhaps talking to reporters
behind the scenes, but then the rebuttal comes 125 years later. But North Carolinians are not to be messed
with, they’re not to be called cowards, and they’re not to be challenged in this
way. Monuments started to pop up, I had so many
that I couldn’t put them in the slideshow, so I tried to make a collage, of monuments
that started to go up in the 1880’s 1890’s, where they state they were the first at Bethel,
that was a battle near Hampton, Virginia. Ok, and that was the, a fight in the vicinity
of Fortress Monroe. The Battle of First Bethel, they were first
at Big Bethel, they were the farthest to the front at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and they
were the last to fire a volley at Appomattox. And, and this marker, is where that last volley
was reportedly fired at Appomattox. Now, but if you look at these other markers,
they talk about North Carolinians were the closest to the front at Gettysburg, and that’s
repeated over and over again, and there are many more than I’ve placed here. Oh! And notice the quote that I’ve placed at
the top, the Latin term, “esse quam videri,” means “to be, rather than seem to be.” So, North Carolinians are going even further,
and they’re saying, on their statue, they made it their North Carolina motto, their
official motto, in 1893. They’re saying, not only were we first at
all these places, but we’re the real deal. And this is at Oakwood Cemetery, near Raleigh,
North Carolina, where there are a number of Gettysburg dead, that were transferred from
this battlefield. Same emphasis, “First at Bethel, Farthest
to the front at Gettysburg and Chicamauga, and last at Appomattox.” I would also emphasis that, I was thinking
about this, you have some strange stream of conscious when you’re working on programs
like this. Notice when Orville and Wilbur Wright broke
their barrier it was called “First in flight.” North Carolinians are into first at this and
first at that. So they set the record straight then, and
this, this visual kinda helps reinforce what we talked about. Here’s the North Carolina monument, 26th
North Carolina Monument, and we can see, just the tip of the Armistead Fallen marker. So, Gettysburg monuments, what do you see? When you look at the monuments at the High
Water Mark, do you see a final verdict on the rebellion? Or instead, do you see an altar to liberty? Do you see, when you go to the National Monument
and the Soldier’s National Monument, in the cemetery, do you see a national conversation
around the base of that monument? When you look at the graves that surround
it, in a circle, do you see e pluribus unum? Out of many, one. Do you see a grand theater there, a forum,
an amphitheater waiting for the final day when? Do you see an eternal light to warn against
national shipwrecks, at the Peace Light? For the Soldiers Monument, do you see City
Beautiful? Do you see neoclassicism? Do you see Beaux Arts? Do you see the Great White City? Do you see romanticism, which is more of a
classic presentation of statues on the battlefield? With the Robert E. Lee Equestrian, do you
see a lost cause, or do you see a romantic hero? A great hero here at Gettysburg? And can you see North Carolina’s eternal
grudge carved in stone? Thank you all for coming out today, and remembering.
