On July 1, 1863, 160,000 Union and Confederate soldiers
descended upon the tiny town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Two days later,
51,000 of them would either be dead, wounded or missing.
This week, 200,000 tourists are in Gettysburg commemorating the 150th anniversary of the battle now known as the “greatest” of the Civil War. Whether it makes more sense to call it the greatest or the most tragic – given the carnage it left behind – it is true that a different outcome might have changed American history. Gettysburg was the only battle fought north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Had the Confederacy succeeded in penetrating Pennsylvania, we might be two nations today instead of one. Most historians agree that the Union victory at Gettysburg and the simultaneous victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi, marked the turning point of the Civil War.
I have no desire to be part of the bedlam that is surely overtaking that otherwise quiet community this week, but I’ve been to Gettysburg many times. While my oldest son was a student at Gettysburg College, we paid multiple visits to the battlefield, museum, and the National Cemetery. Gettysburg is a moving place. Millions travel to its National Military Park every year, far more than visit any of the battlefields of the Revolutionary War. Some visit Gettysburg purely out of historical interest. Others come with the words of Lincoln’s famous address echoing in their minds. Still others journey there as pilgrims to a shrine of the “high water mark of the Confederacy,” remythologizing the Old South as an idyllic society devoted to personal freedom and limited government (as though the issue of slavery was incidental). The Gettysburg battlefield is the geographical intersection of competing stories about our nation.
In a 2011 post marking the 150th anniversary of the attack on Ft. Sumter, I reflected on the significance of the Civil War for America’s historical identity. I invite you to read it. Much of what I wrote there is very much in my mind this week as Independence Day is overshadowed by the Gettysburg anniversary. It seems to me that, while the Civil War’s bloodiest battle ended 150 years ago, a psychological “battle of Gettysburg” continues today.
Copyright 2013 by J. Mark Lawson
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