Thinking of another early July: Gettysburg
Michael Shaara’s magnificent historical novel, Killer Angels, is required reading at West Point Academy and should be required in all American colleges.
Why?
There are countless reasons I write this but primarily two.
When we reflect on the extraordinary history of America, “We should kneel down in gratitude!”
Secondly, from the first page, author Shaara places his reader there with searing, heart-wrenching prose that captures our hearts. Like these words of Major-General John Buford, a soldier’s soldier:
He had held good ground before and sent off appeals, and help never came. He was very low on faith. It was a kind of gray sickness; it weakened the hands. He stood up and walked to the stone fence. It wasn’t the dying. he has seen good men die all his life, and death was the luck of the chance, the price you eventually paid.
What was worse was the stupidity. The appalling sick stupidity that was so bad you thought sometimes you would go suddenly, violently, completely insane just having to watch it. It was a deadly thing to be thinking on.
Job to be done here. And all of it turns on faith.
We know what he’s talking about, this soldier. We’ve witnessed stupidity: our own and those above us. But the stupidity of powerful people who can’t or won’t admit their ignorance is another level entirely, especially in war and medicine. There, stupidity is lethal, perhaps even sinful.
Gettysburg, the 1993 movie, is an epic.
Gettysburg follows Shaara’s book precisely. Therefore, it’s long, requires concentration, and highlights both the insanity and nobility of war. It does so through a careful step-by-step recreation of the two armies meeting at this place no one had ever heard of before, each initially surprised by the presence of the other. And a growing sense of inevitability.
Tom Berenger’s performance as James Longstreet is brilliant in his futile efforts to persuade Confederate General Lee to retreat from a fight that can’t be won. Union General John Buford’s (played by Sam Elliot) intuitive decision to place his cavalry strategically in the high ground of the cemetery offers the Confederate Army no good choices when two corps of Union infantry arrive.
Each actor in the film’s immense cast is impressive, but Jeff Daniels’ portrayal of Col. Joshua Chamberlain, a former Bowdoin College history teacher, commands the screen.
Chamberlain’s situation is bizarre. While Chamberlain and his regiment are camped a few miles from Gettysburg, a Union soldier delivers a large group of imprisoned Union soldiers. He tells Chamberlain he is free to shoot them because they deserted. (No fiction writer could have made this situation up.) Lee’s Confederate army is heading to Washington, intending to capture the capital. Three years of mostly victories have emboldened the Southern General, and he’s hoping to end this war: Chamberlain needs these 120 deserters desperately.
We’re moving out in a few minutes. We’ll be moving all day. I’ve been ordered to take you men with me, I’m told that — that if you don’t come I can shoot you. Well, you know I won’t do that. Maybe somebody else will, but I won’t. So that’s that.
Here’s the situation. The whole reb army is up that road aways waiting for us, so this is no time for an argument like this. I tell you, we could surely use you fellas. We’re now well below half strength. Whether you fight or not, that’s — that’s up to you. Whether you come along is — is — well, you’re coming. You know who we are, what we’re doing here, but if you are going to fight alongside us there are a few things I want you to know.
This regiment was formed last summer in Maine. There were a thousand of us then. There are less than three hundred of us now. All of us volunteered to fight for the union, just as you did. Some came mainly because we were bored at home — thought this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. And all of us have seen men die.
This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you will see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them or — or just because they like killing. But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.
America should be free ground — all of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free — all the way, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home.
But it’s not the land. There’s always more land.
It’s the idea that we all have value — you and me.
It’s impossible to watch this film, or read the book it’s based on, without thinking about war and its justification.
Just so,
Was President Trump’s last weekend surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear production facilities a good decision?
The vehemence against it is strident: “Immoral and dangerous.“
These are strange times. But if we scan history, all times are bizarre. Many of us seem to believe the only justified war is the one between Ukraine and Russia, despite the deaths of over a million people. Certainly, no entry into war receives unqualified support. Whether it was the Revolutionary War, Civil War, or either world war, countless Americans have been in opposition.
I just finished reading Michael Shaara’s (Jeff Shaara’s son) The Glorious Cause. Forgive the aside here, but our upcoming commemoration of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain demands more than barbecue and beer. Aren’t we morally obligated to reflect on this country’s wars and why they were fought?
While we do so, we must consider the hopelessness of the American Revolutionary War. The obstacles placed in front of George Washington were gigantic.
That a mostly barefoot, starving, barely clad, unpaid, and often unarmed army of farmers could achieve victory over the greatest army in the world was impossible.
And yet they did it.
Last year, on the eightieth anniversary of the Normandy invasion, Meir Y Soloveick’s published I Will Not Fail Nor Forsake You. The piece is short, I’ve embedded it here because it warrants a thoughtful read. Soloveick’s essay is insightful and a challenge to those of us demanding peace at all costs.
In his well-known 1985 Normandy speech, President Reagan spoke of General Matthew Ridgeway’s tossing, turning, and praying the night before the attack.
“I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.” The sleepless Ridgeway recalled the Lord’s words to Joshua on the eve before that momentous battle, as he listened in hope to hear the same words.
A year later, in 1985, at Arlington Cemetery, President Reagan returned to General Ridgeway in a far more somber speech.
“We endanger the peace,” Reagan reflected, “and confuse all issues when we obscure the truth; when we refuse to name an act for what it is.”
Only after making this clear did Reagan refer to the American obligation to those who had died; only then did he invoke the Ridgeway story:
Peace fails when we forget to pray to the source of all peace and life and happiness. I think sometimes of General Matthew Ridgeway,
who, the night before D-day, tossed sleepless on his cot and talked to the Lord and listened for the promise that God made to Joshua:“I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”…Let us make a compact today with the dead, a promise in the words for which General Ridgeway listened, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
