Civil War museum brings three views together

yahoo! ^ | Nov 26, 2003 | DeWayne Wickham

[stainlessbanner]

Alexander Wise knows better than most Americans the damage a one-sided account of an important event in the life of this nation can cause.

Wise is president of the Tredegar National Civil War Foundation, a non-profit group that has hatched a good idea. Next year, the organization will break ground for a Civil War museum in Richmond, Va., that will tell the story of that bloody conflict from three perspectives: those of the Union, the Confederacy and blacks.

"There's no place in America that tells the whole story," Wise said. "I don't think you can understand any story unless you look at it in proper context."

That's a good point. Every side in a conflict has its own "truths" and usually finds it difficult to acknowledge the views of people on the other side. That's especially true with the Civil War, a conflict that nearly ripped this nation apart and that continues to divide large segments of this country.

Like most Americans, I've focused largely on a view that fits my thinking about the War Between the States: I consider that fight largely a war over slavery. That's the narrow angle from which many blacks see the Civil War. But those whites who see the Civil War as a battle of states rights vs. the supremacy of the federal system are just as myopic.

In the past, I've derided people who find some redeeming value in the Confederate flag or tout Confederate leaders as American heroes. People who were offended by those views responded with blasts at me that some might think were equally narrow-minded.

While Wise's museum might not alter my views, or those of my detractors, I think it has real promise. Housing a historical collection from three prominent views of the Civil War in one location will expose a lot of people to viewpoints they might not otherwise consider. I suspect only something good will come of that.

Wise's foundation - whose advisory board is an impressive mix of liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites - has raised $11 million of the $18.5 million it needs to build and operate the museum in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy. The group expects to have the rest of the money it needs before the groundbreaking next summer for its museum, which will be called the Tredegar National Civil War Center.

The museum, Wise said, will be located on the site of Tredegar Iron Works, a complex of buildings that was the Confederacy's largest producer of military weapons and now is a National Historic Landmark District. It will house a mix of exhibits borrowed from the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites) and several other important public and private collections.

The museum doesn't intend to tell three different histories. Rather, it will try to show the interplay of the three groups most affected by this national fratricide and the ripple effects the actions of each had on the others, Wise said.

That won't be easy - but think of the good that could come of this.

What would it mean for race relations if Southern whites knew as much about Frederick Douglass as they do about Robert E. Lee? What shifts in thinking might result if blacks knew as much about the motivations of poor Southerners to join the Confederate Army as we know about what caused more than 180,000 blacks to fight in the Union Army? How much better a nation would this be if we finally could put the Civil War behind us?

It's a good bet that this country would be "a more perfect union" if we all knew a lot more about what motivates people on the other side of the lingering fault lines that were produced by the Civil War.

And, for me, that is the promise of Wise's Civil War museum.

[Rebelbase]

FYI, you can now set your side bar colors to alternating Blue and Gray.

[stainlessbanner]

LOL! Honorable colors, indeed.

[ClearCase_guy]

Not a bad idea. But there were 4 views, and they're only talking about 3 of them:

Whites who supported the Union
White who supported the Confederacy
Blacks who supported the Union

And Blacks who supported the Confederacy.

In my opinion, you cannot really understand the war until you know that there were Southern Blacks who wanted to fight on behalf of the Confederacy. The War was very complicated, and we do a disservice when we tell people "It was just about freeing the slaves."

[I_BE_THE_ONE]

I love the honoring of the Blacks of the South. At the end of the war 2/3 of Lees troops were Black.

The PC crowd cheers the immediate freeing of the slaves(this was much like Janet Reno at Waco we are here to help you and then burned 80 children alive). This was not a good idea and the Black community is still suffering. A gradual transition would have worked much better. The Bahamas had a gradual transition with education of the slaves and thus no permanent underclass.
After you have enslaved a population you can not just free them and say all my wrongs against them are forgiven.

In the rural South you will still find genuine love and respect between Black and White families who have lived together since before the Civil War. I remember talking about the father of a man(happens to be Black) I grew up respecting. My uncle said you should have know his father, he was a good man.

[Moose4]

I can't believe the City of Richmond might actually allow something that portrays the Confederacy in any sort of a positive light. Remember, this is the place where a huge mural of Marse Robert was burned off the Shockoe Bottom floodwall a few years back, to the immense pleasure of at least one member of the City Council.

The town has so much history and so much potential as a tourist destination, and the Democrats running things up there just want to turn it into Detroit South, complete with rampant drugs and crime. Proof yet again of what happens when you let liberals run your city.

}:-)4