Conflicted

Charles Town, Virginia

3926.907 N 077 59.371 W

Well, we had a very educational day. We drove from our camp site on The Blue Ridge Highway to Harpers Ferry, WV. We toured the history there. Then we drove further to Antietam National Battlefield. We learned a lot of history. We were inspired. But we were also appalled and sobered by the realities of what we saw.

I should mention that Libby has a blood relation with John Brown. Therefore, Harpers Ferry has special meaning for us. Months ago I addit it near the top of the list of places we wanted to visit.

John Brown; what an enigma. His cause was noble, his bravery deniable. But his tactics were terrible. He murdered innocent families in Kansas, just because their politics differed from his. In Harpers Ferry hi was worse than incompetent as a military planner and commander. What did he accomplish? Many people blamed him for instigating The Civil War. We both think that The Civil War was an unspeakably horrible tragedy. But perhaps the war would have happened anyhow, and it did end slavery. Most inspirational was the quote below.

Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? - Henry David Thoreau

The Battle at Antietam Creek was the bloodiest single day battle in American history. 23,000 dead. What a shame. We are taught to admire and glorify soldiers who die to protect our country,but in this case all the soldiers on both sides were doing that and both represented "our" country.

One and only one thing seems morally clear. General George B McClellan seems to have had dozens of opportunities to end the war early and to spare hundreds of thousands of lives. He bumbled all of them and Lincoln bumbled his leadership by keeping McClellan on so long.

When one is searching for moral clarity, everything about The Civil War is so muscled. Real life is messy, but this case is horrible. The Union fought to end slavery, hooray. But The union wrongly denied valid states rights and the right to secede. The South fought bravely to defend their way of life, but I believe their claim that slavery was essential to that way of life was bogus. John Brown inspired. McClellan bungled. Lee didn't believe in the souths cause, but he defended it bravely and brilliantly. Most poignant from our visit to Anteitam was a plaque in The National Cemetray with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The last sentence of which says:

-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.--- À. Lincoln.

I cringed reading that because I believe that that type of government has perished in the USA. I've heard that mention of the phrase "of the people ... by ... for" are met with derision among the elite in Washington. What a naive concept according to them. So much blood spilled defending a concept that we are voluntarily surrendering in the name of national security. Yet we post those words at the national cemetery over the bodies of those soldiers.

So, we return to our camp site tonight in a somber mood. Better educated, inspired, but sobered.