"Different Dreams...Different Dreams"

Some of you may remember this quotation by Colonel Arthur Fremantle of the Coldstream Guards and neutral observer with Longstreet's Corps Gettysburg. The quote may be fictitious -- I took it from the movie Gettysburg -- but it captures a lot of what is now happening in American culture.

With cries for "states rights" and "secession" again being voiced, we may well wonder exactly how far we've come since April, 1865.

I wonder if we can all agree on two things:

1) Slavery is intrinsically evil and any and all attempts to abolish it were and are justified.
2) Reconstruction after the Civil War was also evil in that it did nothing to "bind up the wounds" but rather was designed to exact vengeance.

...probably not...but it's about as close as we can come.

What's the solution?

The answer was there at Appomattox and in Washington: Grant's terms for surrender and Lincoln's directives to "Let 'em up easy."

IF these two procedures had been followed, then maybe we would not still have "different dreams."

Now, I'm a "dyed in the wool" Northerner -- Union Blue to the corps [sic]. I would have fought with the First Maryland [USA] against the First Maryland [CSA] on Culp's Hill at Gettysburg.

But doesn't mean I look at the officers and enlisted men of the CSA as I do the Nazi SS! I'd see them the way we now regard the German a Japanese soldiers of WWII. [One of my college professors even came to befriend the the Zero pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor! He was the guy who's book was the basis for Tora Tora Tora.]

I still and always will look at the "peculiar institution" embodied in the CSA as I still as always will look at Das Drittes Reich...inherently evil. But the institution and the people in it are not necessarily equivalent. [Remember, Robert E. Lee, Longstreet and Pickett all opposed slavery!]

To make the distinction symbolically clear: I [remember: me=Union guy] can honor the Confederate Battle flag and abhor the CSA's political flag. It's not a stretch! It's exactly what was done at Appomattox, when the union troops saluted Lee and his troops! I figure if the Union troops themselves could honor their adversaries, so can I. It's exactly what Lincoln advised in order to bind up the wounds -- to let 'em up easy. [Also keep in mind, as a symbolic factor, one of Lincoln's favorite songs was "Dixie" -- and he had white house band play it after the surrender at Appomattox to the startled audience on the white house lawn.]

Maybe some day our dreams will not be so different.