Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- From: djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J Heydt)
- Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 02:25:35 GMT
In article <ac7a7ef0-f3f6-469d-9c25-b99fa41861e4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:29:49 GMT, djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:
Except, I bet, more Americans have at least been exposed to the
GA than know what the Battle of Gettysburg was about, or WHERE
Gettysburg is. (It's in Pennsylvania. This croggled me when I
first found it out.)
Um... why? Lee was trying to invade the North to convince the Union
it wasn't worth continuing the fight.
Gettysburg is in the extreme southern part of Pennsylvania, and Lee
was coming up from western Virginia -- remember, West Virginia was
only nominally a Northern state at that point; at the start of the war
it was part of Virginia. It's not far from Harper's Ferry to
Gettysburg.
ObSF: Connie Willis's _Lincoln's Dreams._ Reading that at least
gave me a glimmer of understanding why so many Americans not only
have heard of the US Civil War, but are obsessed with it.
Because they're living in among the battlefields and graveyards,
that's why.
Well, yeah.
When I was growing up in Massachusetts, the Civil War wasn't that big
a deal; it was the Revolution we cared about, since I lived between
Lexington Green and the North Bridge in Concord. One of my teachers
was a direct descendant of one of Paul Revere's little crew -- the
family still lived in the same house they had in 1775. The Civil War
happened over there somewhere.
In Maryland, though, I'm surrounded by the Civil War. I live near the
ring of forts that defended the city of Washington from Confederate
attack, and can drive past the remnants of several of those forts in
the course of running ordinary errands. When my son was in Boy Scouts
his troop regularly took part in the annual memorial ceremony on the
battlefield at Antietam (Sharpsburg, if you're a Southerner). I have
friends up the road in Frederick, which was occupied by the
Confederates and was where Barbara Frietchie (the subject of
Whittier's poem) lived.
On dull afternoons we visit places like Harper's Ferry, or Lincoln's
cottage.
Washington itself is a constant reminder of the Civil War -- that was
was why it tripled in size in a decade and became a majority-black
city, as it's where thousands of freed or escaped slaves went to
settle during the fighting, protected from Confederate slave-takers by
that ring of forts I mentioned.
The war's all around us here. Very hard to ignore.
I wonder if you'd have looked at the recent feature on THE DAILY SHOW
about "Confederate History Month". And "Union Victory Appreciation
Month".
Well, I don't have a television set. My daughter has, but I
don't think she watches the Daily Show. Good Eats and Mythbustes
and even CSI, or You Are What You Eat, or How Clean is Your
House, maybe.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- From: noRm d. plumBeR
- Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- References:
- Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- From: Meteorologist
- Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- From: Dorothy J Heydt
- Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- From: Lawrence Watt-Evans
- Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- From: Robert Carnegie
- Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- Prev by Date: Re: Charlie George rides again
- Next by Date: Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- Previous by thread: Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- Next by thread: Re: Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
