White History Month Curriculum

I always seem to find two things when I actually sit down to do a blog. This one comes courtesy of something that was posted by a friend of mine on Facebook. I had blogged earlier on Black History Month, and despite it being over now its not like we can't get a laugh out of some satire about the point of a "White History Month." Click the Link below and enjoy.

http://storify.com/brokeymcpoverty/whitehistoryclasses

These Honored Dead

So I’ve actually been assigned something to put on this blog. I have to make up a few questions in regards to Tom Desjardin’s These Honored Dead. I actually struggle with just making up questions in regards to readings. So instead. I am going to type out some thoughts and hopefully questions will come from this. Heck, maybe no one will even see this introduction and I am just rambling to myself.

Desjardin is dealing with the inherent issue with Civil War History, that being that much of what we know about the war, and in the case of the book, Gettysburg, is what has been gathered from the memories of veterans. But the problem is, these memories have often been twisted or warped by the passage of time. It feels like this is a big deal, but is it? At this point there is no going back and actually observing the events and chronicling them correctly. So should we even have the argument about whether the observations are historically correct? The best we could hope to do is tear away at the mythos until we have the bear bones of what might have actually happened, and even then it might still be wrong.

Desjardin also points out the story of Joshua Chamberlin and the 20^th Maine, which has been canonized by the book Killer Angle and its subsequent movie adaptation Gettysburg. Desjardin uses this legend as a sort of catalyst for showing the reader tales that probably never happened. He even names one of the chapters after inquiries visitors to Gettysburg have about the location of Buster Kilrain’s grave. But Desjardin does not just point out the inconsistencies in the Chamberlin mythos, he points out that during Chamberlin’s life, he himself sought to spread the truth about his actions at Gettysburg. And while Chamberlin did give inaccurate figures about troop numbers, he did so honestly based on the information that he had. But then why does the story of Chamberlin have to be the legend? Is America so desperate for a Romantic figure on the side of the Union that we have to make one up? Is that not really how all heroes are formed, as an ordinary man who is then built up with less than reasonable facts until they attain a godlike status?

And finally in the grand scheme of things what does it matter? Mostly this is a question that I would like to pose to some of the units from back in the day. Desjardin writes on various units fighting to have their memorials placed in certain parts of the battle field. To me, and I am sure a lot of other people, the fighting over the minute details seemed so petty. I mean New York and Pennsylvania had an ongoing feud with each other over who did more in the Battle of Gettysburg and they started a spat over it. And then, the fact that the feud was prominent enough to be featured in a history book some 120+ years later is crazy. So that’s why I ask: What does it matter? I am not discounting the book, I would just love to hear some opinions on the matter.

I noticed only after going back through my ramblings that a lot of my questions pretty much boiled down to this. What is the point, does it really matter? I guess that must be the general feeling I have about this. But in everyway I ask the question, I always come up with a different answer myself, so other opinions would be awesome.