War
Don Coldsmith
Monday, November 13, 2006
THE COLUMN THIS TIME is going to be pretty tightly based. Our town, Emporia, Kansas, was the birthplace of Veterans Day. We celebrated it the year before Congress voted it a National Holiday and we celebrate it for about a week, honoring all veterans of all wars. We veterans have something in common that simply can’t be felt and understood by the rest of the population. I’m not belittling the suffering of those on the home front. Their sacrifices are every bit as important, but there’s a difference, not easily understood.
The so-called Civil War between the States produced more casualties than all of our other wars combined. All surviving veterans of that conflict are gone now. Yet, it’s worth a note that in later years, “Yankee” and “Rebel” veterans merged their veterans organizations and met together. The last survivor, a few years ago, who had fought for his nation was a Confederate, as I recall.
That conflict, however, split many families apart. It was a very complicated situation and there is still controversy as to what it was about. In this area, we were schooled to believe it was over slavery. In the South, it was over the right of sovereign States (National) to make their own law.
In the process of research for my novel “South Wind” a few years ago, I learned a lot. I’m sure that there were people who hated slavery but embraced States’ Rights and vice versa. Most historians of that day agreed that slavery would have collapsed within a decade anyway, because of mechanization. But that’s speculation.
It’s certain that there were individuals who were loyal to the Union but preferred slavery, as well as those who believed in States Rights but detested the “owning” of human beings. There’s pretty good evidence that the States Rights theory was nearer the original intent, but that’s yet another story.
I was sent a poem some time ago, published in 1864, written by Jacob Shaner. His “family,” in the Shenandoah Valley had been split apart by the political situation and by THEIR beliefs as to the war’s cause and its righteousness. They were “Old Order” Mennonites:
Dear friends please lend an ear to me,
and listen to my rhyme;
It’s of this cruel war
that’s in our native clime.
Can brothers of one flesh and blood
get into such a strife.
And thus forsake the laws of God,
to take their brother’s life?
What is the cause I ask of you,
of all our grief and shame,
What shakes the greatest nation,
that ever had a name?
If I understood the cause of this,
or served with my right mind?
It is the slave of Africa,
as you will surely find.
Who brought them, I need not tell,
for all you do know;
And information you can get,
for history it will show.
This war, it makes my heart so sad,
when I think of pleasures gone;
When I was by my father’s side,
In our peaceful happy home.
But, oh, alas those days are o’er,
I wonder now alone;
And in my dreams and when awake,
I think of my sweet home.
Our land was like one family,
oh horrid is the sight,
That brothers of this family,
do now each other fight.
Dear friends, pray, as well you may,
as servants of the Lord,
That peace and union welcome them
forever (be) restored.
I am a stranger far from home,
affliction now may rise,
But yet my heart is entered on
that rest above the skies.
Then pray dear friends most wise and good,
as you never prayed before,
That heaven to this misguided land
might harmony restore . . . . . .
See you down the road.