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The
War’s Legacy
Even after
the war ended, its repercussions continued to be felt. Parents
grew more protective of their children and the phrase “child
protection” became a watchword for reform societies seeking
to address such social problems as child abuse and neglect. Children’s
experience during the Civil War permanently altered a generation
of Americans, who, in turn transformed American society in the
years that followed. For the children of former Confederates,
the war’s legacy was apparent in the formation of organizations
such as the Sons and the Daughters of the Confederacy, which sought
to ensure that their parents’ sacrifices had not been in
vain. Meanwhile, the children of former Union soldiers took the
lead in promoting hiking, camping, and competitive sports to provide
their offspring with a “moral equivalent of war.”
I, J. Reb,
being of unsound mind and bitter memory, and aware that I am dead,
do make public and declare the following to be my political last
will and testament.
I give, device, and bequeath all my slaves to Harriet Beecher
Stowe.
I direct that all my shares in the venture of secession shall
be cancelled, provided I am released from my unpaid subscription
to the stock of said enterprise.
My interest in the civil government of the Confederacy I bequeath
to any freak museum that may hereafter be established.
My sword, my veneration for General Robert E. Lee, his subordinate
commanders and his peerless soldiers, and my undying love for
my old comrades, living and dead, I set apart as the best I have,
or shall ever have, to bequeath to my heirs forever.
And now, being dead, having experienced a death to Confederate
ideas and a new birth of allegiance to the Union, I depart, with
a vague but not definite hope of a joyful resurrection, and of
a new life, upon lines somewhat different from those of the last
eighteen years. I see what has been pulled down very clearly.
What is to be built up in its place I know not. It is a mystery;
but death is always mysterious. AMEN.
Eighteen-year-old
John Sergeant Wise, a Confederate lieutenant and the son of a
Confederate General, quoted in Werner, Reluctant Witnesses, 142-143
In our district school the history books devoted
at least a third of their contents to the Civil War and every
battle was set down in detail, often with a map beside it. I supposed
no generation after ours was required to learn and know the battles,
generals, plans, armies, and achieve¬ments of both sides as
we were. The events were recited without bitterness and with a
breath catching thankful¬ness that in the end the Union had
been saved. There remained in our minds forever the rollcall of
battle names: Shiloh and Shenandoah, Malvern Hill and Cold Harbor,
the Wilderness and Island Number Ten. If the words were not beautiful
in themselves, they became so to us by the splendor of association.
Anne Gertrude Sneller, who was born in Onandoga
County, New York, in 1883, A Vanished World, 21 22
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