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 20th 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.
Since your questions aren't numbered (which is cool) I'm just going to answer them in order and probably skip over a couple cause there are a billion of them. I feel like part of studying history or playing historian is realizing that on some level, there is an uncertainty, like in a science field. In science, part of what is difficult is minimizing the error in order to have a precise result. Precise being a similar result would appear Same thing applies to history. It's a lot more inexact I think, but if the historian looks at a ton of primary sources, he can filter out the noise and lies, and get a picture of the event (in this case Gettysburg) that is at least consistent with the majority of people. It could be that a lot of people are screwed up in the head and forgot everything, and the accurate picture is not there. So on some level, yeah, it is pointless, but a historian I think can get a fairly accurate description of the event with some work.
ReplyDeleteHeroes in real life aren't as exciting as we want them to be. We want it to be dramatic and epic. Chamberlain was the one who got picked to be dramatized from the battle. We want history to be easily digestible and narrative-esque, easier for us to apply to our everyday lives. And while this does happen in some cases, where it doesn't, artists and the people will create and then latch onto a dramatized version of the events. Sort of a natural progression of events if the battle/event in history is big enough.
In terms of the state issues, it is kind of funny to me, but at the same time, I live in Arizona, we're the state that everyone retires to. We don't really have any rivalries with other states, besides California a little bit, but we realize we're crap compared to California. Back east, states are older and closer together, and it feels like there are more rivalries between them. Is it ridiculous? Yeah, but you look at anything through a large enough scope, and you'll find it ridiculous (little Existentialist there).