U.S. fixing 'Southern bias' at battlefields

CNN ^ | Sunday, December 22, 2002 Posted: 6:17 PM EST | Reuters

[ckilmer]

GETTYSBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- The National Park Service has embarked on an effort to change its interpretive materials at major Civil War battlefields to get rid of a Southern bias and emphasize the horrors of slavery.

The project seems particularly relevant following the furor over Republican Sen. Trent Lott's recent remarks seeming to endorse racial segregation, which forced many Americans to revisit one of the uglier chapters of the nation's history.

[ckilmer]

the trouble with Holocaust morality is that it works as a blood libel against white europeans because the operant blood here is not the blood of Jesus but rather the blood of Abel. (The blood of Abel is the blood of revenge. The blood debt. No matter that when Spielburg did Saving Private Ryan the ending shot showed a sea of crosses. In the forground there was one Jewish Star.)

The practical meaning here is that by slow degrees the european race is being erased.

[TexasRepublic]

Historic revisionism in the finest Soviet tradition. Welcome to the new United Socialist States, Citizen Comrade.

[okie01]

Having toured both the Gettysburg and the Antietam sites, reading every plaque, every brochure, every exhibited text, I can say with some authority that there was absolutely no "Southern bias" detectable.

The stories told in both cases were a straightforward narrative of the battles -- who was there, what they did, how it turned out and why.

And isn't that history's role? To accurately record an event?

Instead, it sounds to me like what is proposed is nothing less than the injection of "liberal bias" into the presentation.

[Martin Tell]

Real problem here is that downplaying the military history by engaging in PC sanitizing will turn off those who are interested in visting the battlefields (like military history buffs, SCV types, families with sons interested in battles, etc.). Result will probably be fewer visitors - usual outcome of the desire to be "inclusive." I hate to tell the Park Service, but urban blacks ain't gonna visit these battlefields in droves anyway. I am disappointed this is happening on W's watch. This is something I would have expected from the Clintons.

I must say I am baffled by cklimer's comments. What has "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" got to do with the US War Between the States? Ever hear of Judah Benjamin?

[lelio]

Their conclusion: that Gettysburg's interpretive programs had a "pervasive southern sympathy."
Ah so instead of "telling a story" like they want (which I'm somewhat in favor of) they want to beat you over the head with "Slavery is WRONG!" at every exhibit. Here's Stonewall's horse. By the way did you know that slavery is bad?

[sheik yerbouty]

But won't we then have "Peace, land, and bread"?

[sheik yerbouty]

But won't we then have "Peace, land, and bread"?

[XRdsRev]

While discussing the causes of the War and the impact of slavery is an admirable and important part of the Park Service's mandate, my biggest fear is that we inject too many modern biases into the interpretation and begin to neglect the battlefields as artifacts/historical features themselves.

Much of the interpretation of battlefields like Gettysburg is based upon writings of the time and reflections of the veterans who fought there (both North & South). Their impressions of combat and their reasons for fighting are too often ignored now in the modern study of history, replaced by political and cultural theory far removed from the people involved in the actual events. If there is a Southern bias at Gettysburg (High Water Mark of the Confederacy, Pickett's Charge), it is because the men who fought there in 1863, felt that way themselves. I have read dozens upon dozens of first hand participant accounts (from private to general, soldier and civilian) of the combat at that place and cannot recall a single one that dwelt upon the political reasons for the fight, as opposed to the tremendous spectacle, military significance and direct human cost of the battle itself.

As historians and humans, we are not immune to our own prejudice and inability to truly "connect" or understand the people/circumstances of 139 years ago. While it is not unfair to be judgemental to a certain degree, we tend to paint distant historical events with a somewhat disconnected 20th/21st century brush.

Another disturbing feature of recent museum curation and interpretation is the degree to which material culture has been minimalized in some museum work. Artifact displays have been supplanted in many cases by broad interpretive thesis on which no one will ever agree. While I fully understand that not everyone wants to see cases full of relics from the battle, it remains a fact that the old Rosensteel Museum, which was nothing but cases full of relics and an electric map, was one of the most popular Gettysburg attractions for over 50 years. A park like Gettysburg must interpret the "why" of what happened but it should not come at the expense of "how" it happened.

Discounting the tactics of a place like Gettysburg along with the material culture associated with such an important spot, for the sake of overemphasising broad cultural theory is in my view a mistake.

Finally, at least 3 fully armed "black" Confederate soldiers were captured at the battle. It will be interesting to see how that is interpreted.

[ckilmer]

I must say I am baffled by cklimer's comments

"Latschar said he was inspired by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which sets out to tell a story rather than to display historical artifacts behind glass cases."

[End The Hypocrisy]

Maybe they're anticipating an upturn in pro-Dixie sentiments when the following high budget Civil War movies come out in 2003?


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/797875/posts

[Martin Tell]

inspired by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum...

I still don't understand. Because this guy says he was inspired by the Holocaust Museum, you contend that this PC outrage is a Jewish plot???

[ckilmer]

contend that this PC outrage is a Jewish plot???
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no.

[Hacksaw]

Maybe they can install a roller coaster and a casino.

[ckilmer]

Maybe they can install a roller coaster and a casino.
//////////////////////////
the guys who died in those battles were much better men than most of the guys around today.

[SoDak]

Anytime I visit a monument, battlefield, or really any place of historical significance, I find it helpful to purposefully avoid the "interpretive center". One can almost always be assured that a beaurocrat's interpretation will have little or nothing to do with the actual history of the site.

[KC_Conspirator]

I have toured the Gettyburg site as well and as Unionist I can tell you that there is no "souther bias" there. I highly doubt that thoughts of slavery ran through the minds of the outgunned Unions soldiers as Confederate bullets whized by them on Little Round Top or that Rebels thought about that while Union cannon shot mowed them down as they mounted Picketts charge.

All they do there is tell good stories and try to recount the battle as best they can. Thats the basis of what good historians do. One can make judgements as a historian when you compile the facts, but this is PURE REVISIONISM - where the truth is distorted to fit a political view.

I watched a Discovery channel show last night and realized that in 12-15 short years the Nazi's had turned all sorts of serious studies on their heads so that all of the academe would fit their political view. The communists later did this as well. Science, history, anthropology, religion, economics, language, myth, etc., were all warped to fit big lies. This sort of crap is going on with the modern western left of today.