They didn’t care what their status was they intended to sell them as slaves back in the markets in Richmond. Blacks in southern Pennsylvania (most of whom were free) made a mass exodus from the area, because as the Confederates entered the state, they rounded up as many blacks as they could, including the elderly, the women, and the children, making no distinction between freeborn blacks and runaways. With respect to the diversity of Gettysburg’s population, i.e., the presence of blacks, both free and slave, Guelzo makes a point of telling their story as well, something often omitted by chroniclers of the battle. “Negroes Driven South By The Rebel Officers,” Harper’s Weekly, November 8, 1862. How fun to learn that rum was added to water to disinfect it that sawdust was kept on board ships to spread out on decks before battles so no one would slip on blood and that combatants determined how old their bread was by the stages in the life cycles of the weevils and maggots it contained. I think I first fell in love with finding out details of military life when I read about the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Or did you ever wonder about the perils of not being able to keep hygienic for so long? There are not just the problems about which you might be aware, like disease and discomfort, but how about the fact that you couldn’t really sneak up on another army because they could smell you coming?!!! But really, there is so much fascinating that you find out and that is relevant to your lives! For example, for those of you who can barely manage to come up with meals to feed 2 or 4 or 6 people everyday, what if you had to feel thousands every day? Where would the food come from and what receptacles would you use for cooking? How would all of this be transported between battlefields? I know many potential readers have a knee-jerk reaction to books about battles, a reaction that presumes the story will be of little or no interest to them. Subsequently, an outpouring of words on Gettysburg has described every aspect of the battle, with Allen Guelzo, Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College, adding yet another comprehensive blow-by-blow account to the mix.
In spite of its importance, it might have been just another battle site competing in memory with all the rest but for its reframing in just 272 words by Lincoln at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg that November. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first three days of July in 1863.
0 kommentar(er)
