More than once during the Civil War, newspapers reported a strange phenomenon. From only a few miles away, a battle sometimes made no sound ”” despite the flash and smoke of cannon and the fact that more distant observers could hear it clearly.
These eerie silences were called “acoustic shadows.”
Tuesday, the 150th anniversary of the first engagement of the Civil War, the Confederacy’s attack on Fort Sumter, we ask again whether in our supposedly post-racial, globalized, 21st-century world those now seemingly distant battles of the mid-19th century still have any relevance. But it is clear that the further we get from those four horrible years in our national existence ”” when, paradoxically, in order to become one we tore ourselves in two ”” the more central and defining that war becomes.
While it is good to reflect on the Civil War I feel Burns is out of touch. I would be hard pressed to identify anyone I have ever dealt with in daily life who is secretly inclined to wax rhapsodic about the Ku Klux Klan. The closest I can think of anything like that emotion is in Reconstruction scenes from Gone with the Wind, and even that depiction is far from the terrorist atrocities that are the evil fruits of the true Klan we all detest. There was something about the Civil War that tended to enthrone the New York/New England view as the paragon of morality. The temptation was that mere right thinking, without self-sacrifice, was virtue in itself. I think that condescending self-righteous attitude somehow continues to this day.
What a bunch of PC hooey. But then again, it is Ken Burns.
I would be hard pressed to identify anyone I have ever dealt with in daily life who is secretly inclined to wax rhapsodic about the Ku Klux Klan…There was something about the Civil War that tended to enthrone the New York/New England view as the paragon of morality”.
Adam, I would disagree; you may not have lived in some of the places I have lived, both North and South.
I will agree that I have not seen “terrorist atrocities”, but I have seen unfair loss of jobs, running people out of their towns and homes, “shunning”, subtle oppression of minorities and their viewpoints, etc.
If it is your experience to see New Englanders, basically, on their “high horse”, then I find that sickly amusing because I saw them do similar things as above to Portuguese communities.
I don’t find Burns out of touch, I find him largely right.
kb is a pompous ass, more of the loathsome ne liberal elite. he is better than you, just ask him.
An insightful reflection. But then again, it is Ken Burns.
It is somewhat ironic that he would criticize romanticism, because he’s as much of a sentimentalist as anyone. That often gets him in trouble with academic historians and the cultural elite. It is also what has earned him so many fans outside of academe.
[blockquote] Yet in the years immediately after the South’s surrender at Appomattox we conspired to cloak the Civil War in bloodless, gallant myth, obscuring its causes and its great ennobling outcome [/blockquote] But this was necessary. The country had to be re-united, and that required some salve for Confederate honor and Confederate loss.
carl
Back to acoustic shadows: I have read that the 3 July cannonade at Gettysburg was heard in Pittsburgh, many miles to the west, but was inaudible to cavalrymen just a few miles east of the town.
Also: it frequently happened on a day following a major battle that there would be torrential rains. Many soldiers of the time hypothesized that the din of the artillery somehow created atmospheric conditions that spawned massive rainstorms.
#7: Wild armchair hypothesizing here, but it could conceivably be the huge clouds of gunpowder smoke put into the air during a major battle that triggered rain. If I remember correctly, it was a common observation that almost as soon as a battle started it became extremely difficult to see through the dense clouds of smoke.
RE: “that required some salve for Confederate honor and Confederate loss.”
Heh — we didn’t need any salve. Still don’t, Carl.
9. Sarah [blockquote] Heh—we didn’t need any salve.[/blockquote] Of course you don’t. You are too far removed from the conflict. But what could be said to those whose husbands and sons and brothers were killed or crippled to no purpose? I know how I felt about Vietnam at the time. I know how I still fell about Vietnam, and its been 40 years. Not much changes with time because there isn’t any answer to the question. The trauma of Vietnam is as nothing compared to the trauma of the Civil war.
carl
RE: “But what could be said to those whose husbands and sons and brothers were killed or crippled to no purpose?”
No worries, Carl — the South always knew that they had a purpose. Maybe the Yankees had a problem with it, but Southerners had no need for salve or a “sense of purpose” in their fight.
Just don’t worry about us, Carl — Southerners were just fine as far as honor, though defeated.