One Day, the View Changes and All Your Thoughts Must Change with The Changed View

Before I get too far along that endless road that will lead me into other events in life, I have to return to Gettysburg, which has been on my mind so much of late. I went over to the MSU Library after our visit to the battlefield to see what might be had there for fun reading on the subject. What I found was a book that has changed my thinking about the battle forever, as much as I have studied it, as much as I thought I knew it. This kind of occurence always bothers me. You're tripping merrily along with the illusion that you have things fairly well in hand in some intellectual area, only to discover that you haven't even begun to understand the subject you believe you know so well. Such has happened for me upon reading These Honored Dead, a history of the HISTORY of Gettysburg. That is, the book is a study of how the STORY of Gettysburg developed out of and apart from the much disputed facts of the complex event itself.

The fact that the facts of the battle are much disputed is one circumstance the book made abundantly clear. I had thought that what happened at Gettysburg was pretty well settled long ago. Not so. Another idea the book made clear is that much of what we understand about Gettysburg is myth -- in the good sense of this loaded word -- not facts. It turns out that the battle has been the subject of much myth-making, for good and ill, down through all 150 years since it took place. Among the major myths are the so-called "Copse of Trees" and the so-called "High Water Mark of the Confederacy." These two titles and the mythical historical ideas behind them are the invention, or the inventive interpretation, of one man who became obsessed with Gettysburg soon after the battle took place, John Bachelder. I had never taken the slightest notice of this fellow before (though I had probably run across his name from time to time), as much as I have read about Gettysburg. Bachelder was a painter who wanted to promote the battle as the central moment in the Civil War and, hence, one of the central moments in the nation itself. He created several myths to do so, myths that have become part of, as we say, the national consciousness. I'll be pondering this whole matter for years to come. What is history and what is myth? What is good and bad in myth? What is important and meaningful and truly TRUE in fact and myth, and what isn't? Through the history of the history of this battle can such ideas be endlessly pondered and debated.

Now, for the photo, briefly. It's a shot in the forest on the side of Big Round Top, the large, steep hill at the south end of the battlefield. The hill did not play a prominent part in the battle, neither in fact or in myth. But it is close to a prominent part of the battlefield. Logan and I walked up Big Round Top over these massive boulders. We huffed and puffed in the spring warmth and humidity. We discovered that this hill and the valley at its foot would have been exceedingly difficult to negotiate in battle, especially for soldiers trying to make a charge through the heat of a summer day and smoke and gunfire.