We needed a way to commemorate the Civil War once it was done.. Decoration Day was a fine way to do such–decades later it would turn into Memorial Day and now a century later we still honor the war dead in the United States..
The Civil War, however, seems so distant a memory that even some history classes have stopped giving poignant lessons on how we managed to get engaged in a war of the states–and then sadly how we still try to manage with the long unintended consequences of the division, the Radical Republican Reconstruction, segregation, and Civil Rights battles since..
This Wall Street JOURNAL article by Cameron McWhiter was fascinating.. is it possible that the Civil War tourism trap of the 20th century is finally over? From the the article, the money quote.
The National Park Service’s five major Civil War battlefield parks—Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Vicksburg—had a combined 3.1 million visitors in 2018, down from about 10.2 million in 1970, according to park-service data. Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, the most famous battle site, had about 950,000 visitors last year, just 14% of how many it had in 1970 and the lowest annual number of visitors since 1959. Only one of these parks, Antietam, in Maryland, saw an increase from 1970.
And more..
The number of Civil War re-enactors, hobbyists who meet to re-create the appearance of a particular battle or event in period costume, also is declining. They are growing too old or choosing to re-enact as Vietnam War soldiers or cowboys, said Mr. Varnell, 49 years old.
“Cowboy re-enacting is where bitter, jaded Civil War re-enactors go,” he said, standing by a cash register surrounded by Civil War relics and flags.
Mike Brown, 68, still plays part of the cavalry at Civil War re-enactments and recently helped organize a recreation of the Battle of Resaca in Georgia. “The younger generations are not taught to respect history, and they lose interest in it,” he said.
More recent history is also damping interest, said Kevin Levin, author of a coming book on the war. The fatal 2015 shooting of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., by a white man who had embraced the Confederate battle flag and the 2017 white-nationalist rally around a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va., has transformed how people view Confederate imagery and, in turn, Civil War-related historic sites.
All things live, and all things die. It’s interesting to note a world where we forget to pay homage.. where the war dead become just another stat in a distant history lesson..
In a way this transition is somewhat natural. How many Medieval Battles can we constantly re-enact? How many scars of former wars can we pick open each memorial?
We face a future where history becomes far behind us. And that is not a commentary on whether it is right or wrong.. just reality.
A future where the Holocaust will be so distant a memory that even generations of the dead will be dead… A future where 9/11’s impact will be forgotten.. a future where, as we see now, the Civil War becomes almost so obscure a piece of history that we neglect to ponder its significance in our national development.. and sadly get so doomed to repeat the ramifications of the war again…and again.. and again.
It’s not a good thing that we are forgetting this time in our history. But somehow it’s natural .. it’s the way things go.
Educators don’t teach about the Civil War anymore.. Even during the late 90s when I was finishing my high school years, my history teachers focused on the post World War II history .. Yes it’s more recent. More interesting to hear names that we recognize.. But we also are shielded from hardcore realities when we stop learning about battles in Gettysburg.. Fort Sumter.. and even earlier horrors like Andrew Jackson’s trail of tears.
History should not be a lesson for the few, but instead one for all…
In our modern era? We ALL have forgotten the lessons..
