Walt Whitman was a nurse within the Civil Conflict. His brother George was wounded on the Battle of Fredericksburg. The poet rushed from Brooklyn to a Washington, D.C., hospital and located a “new world” of horror and hope.
He wrote a really readable diary about it, “Memoranda Throughout the Conflict,” that features gut-turning descriptions of piles of amputated limbs and loving portraits of wounded troopers.
He’d give them chaws of tobacco and pocket cash, write their letters dwelling. And, being Walt, examine them out within the course of. “He seems so good-looking as he sleeps.”
That final element is likely to be creepy. But it surely’s additionally attention-grabbing and price noting of the person who as soon as wrote, “What’s extra lovely than candor?”
In his travels round Washington, D.C., Whitman generally noticed Abraham Lincoln — they’d nod to one another in passing.
I admit to noticing Lincoln in my very own wanderings across the metropolis — not within the flesh, thank goodness, not but. However in locations related to him, significantly at Wabash and Lake, the unique web site of the Wigwam, the place Lincoln was nominated for president in 1860.
Although Lincoln wasn’t there; his handlers saved him safely in Springfield in order to not screw up their crude deal-making. One other messy element.
Lincoln is at all times right here, at all times related, as a result of we’re nonetheless preventing the Civil Conflict. There’s no different option to put it. 1000’s of books have been written in regards to the sixteenth president, however my favourite is “Pricey Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President,” edited by Harold Holzer.
Like on-line feedback at this time, most of the letters are sharp, telegraphic bursts.
“Equal rights & Justice to all white males in america ceaselessly,” urges John McMahon of Hambrook, Pennsylvania on Aug. 5, 1864. “White males is in school primary & black males in school quantity two & have to be ruled by white males ceaselessly.”
That seems like one thing discovered on X at this time. At the very least McMahon expresses his hateful ideas straight, versus our present ardour for insinuation and cant, equivalent to President Donald Trump’s latest government order to tamp down authorities portrayal of the wrestle for equal rights on this nation beneath the Orwellian title, “Restoring Fact and Sanity to American Historical past.”
Official web sites are scrubbed, museum shows censored, books banned.
All of it’s executed beneath the flawed notion that together with the troublesome, disagreeable facets of historical past is dispiriting and have to be suppressed. I suppose a lot of the Civil Conflict might fall into that class, as does Lincoln being assassinated, April 14, 1865, 160 years in the past Monday, by a fanatical Southerner — and that is the form of element minimize out —incensed at the concept Black individuals would acquire the fitting to vote. Now their vote is being suppressed extra cannily, although the motive is identical. “White males is in school primary.”
The previous needs to be prettied up as a result of the intention is to pull our nation again there. They faux to be making use of mental rigor or wholesome skepticism, when what they’re really doing is whitewashing something that offers away the sport they’re enjoying. Holocaust deniers do the identical factor: pluck at inconsistencies within the huge mass of German record-keeping and faux to boost reliable doubts.
When in actuality they each cleave to hateful ideology and resent the final word vacation spot of the highway they’re on being demonstrated in a compelling vogue. Sending American residents to inhuman prisons in El Salvador will finish with us sending Americans to inhuman prisons right here. Historical past teaches that.
Southerners despised Lincoln, maybe essentially the most articulate president ever, calling him a low born obscene clown. They’d some extent — this trustworthy historical past factor requires you to acknowledge even details that cross in opposition to your normal beliefs. Lincoln did joke rather a lot, introducing himself and his squat spouse as “the lengthy and the wanting it.”
Lincoln was additionally a pointy lawyer. He’d come to Chicago to characterize railroads. As soon as, in summation of a trial, Lincoln talked about the punch line of a well-liked joke: “They’ve their details proper, however are drawing the mistaken conclusion.”
The total joke went like this:
A farm boy runs to his father and says, “Pa, pa, the employed hand and sis are within the hay loft! She’s a liftin’ up her gown up and he’s a pullin’ down his pants and affixin’ to pee everywhere in the hay.”
The farmer places his hand on the agitated boy’s shoulder and replies, “Son, you’ve received the details proper however you’re drawing the mistaken conclusion.”
Those that suppress historical past collect restricted details to attract mistaken conclusions. Historical past is filled with what occurs through the tragic durations the place such suppression takes maintain. We have to be taught these classes now greater than ever.
