Difference between revisions of "471A3--Week 2 Questions/Comments--Thursday"
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| + | == Faust == | ||
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| + | '''How did they do it?''' | ||
As mentioned in class, the people at this time did not have the ability to figure out who was who based on DNA when trying to bury them and report to their families. In Faust's reading, somehow James Moore was able to identify 12,912 of the 13,363 bodies of Union soldiers from Andersonville. This just seems remarkable. How long did it take him to figure the identifications of so many men? And how? –Megan Mc. | As mentioned in class, the people at this time did not have the ability to figure out who was who based on DNA when trying to bury them and report to their families. In Faust's reading, somehow James Moore was able to identify 12,912 of the 13,363 bodies of Union soldiers from Andersonville. This just seems remarkable. How long did it take him to figure the identifications of so many men? And how? –Megan Mc. | ||
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| + | How was it possible after a year of decomposition to identify bodies of Union and Confederate soldiers? The bodies were generally buried no more than a foot deep. A good rain would uncover the bodies and as the reading described hogs would eat the bodies. So how could the indentify them. Was there an attempt to return the bodies home to be buried in local cemeteries? Logan T | ||
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| + | '''The Dead and Reconciling the Living''' | ||
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| + | '''Faust talks about how the national reburial program led to the redefining of the nation. How did the treatment of the dead jeopardize the redefinition of the nation?''' --MK | ||
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| + | MK, don't you think that by 1865, many of the soldiers just wanted to return home? With so many stories of brother-fighting-brother, I think everyone was eager to return home to some sort of union, however tenuous. --Cash | ||
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| + | The issue of a proper and honorable burial for soldiers, especially Union soldiers in the South was a problem after the war. How much do you think this process of creating a national cemetery system contributed to reconciliation? -Avanness | ||
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| + | '''Faust’s piece contrasts the reinterment process taken on by the federal government for Union soldiers with that taken on by families and women’s organizations for Confederates. The disparity really demonstrates some of the unique awkwardness of the Civil War and Reconstruction. How does this particular aspect of the aftermath of the war help to explain some of the long-held, sectional bad feelings?''' -Erin B. | ||
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| + | On page 191, Faust writes that during Whitman’s long task to find and record Union graves throughout the South, he often came upon graves or graveyards that were terribly unkempt. Even worse, it seemed obvious that the Southerners were destroying the graveyards on purpose. On page 191, he writes that the Southerners had built roads and walkways over the graves that had all but destroyed them while nearby there were Confederate graves that were very well kept. '''Why did Southerners purposefully destroy Union graves when they themselves knew the feeling of not knowing where their deceased loved ones were?''' - Angie | ||
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| + | On Page 189 Drew Faust's work "Battle over the Bodies" how the position of the South had changed from stunned disbelief to a posture of growing defiance. One of the ways that the South continued to defy the North was to disturb the grave sites of Union soldiers which the Union was surprised that this type of action was taking place. Faust discusses that the reason for the South to desecrate Union graces was that the graves proved to be an irresistible target for southern rage and was an opportunity to express their refusal of defeat. The Confederacy was unable to defeat a live Union army, but they could stay fight against a dead one.- Nick | ||
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| + | '''I was particularly struck by this article. What are your personal opinions regarding Faust's discussion on violence against protectors of Union corpses. Is confederate desecration of Union tombs and bodies understandable? What are your personal reactions about the violence committed against those trying to protect or bury the bodies? Does this article make you reflect on how body treatment was portrayed in popular Civil War movies?''' - A. Askins | ||
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| + | Faust discusses the role of blacks in the burials of Union soldiers across the South (192-193) and how impartial blacks were to helping the bury the Union dead. Why do you think this was, and what kind of fears do you think the slaves encountered from whites in the south who were hostile to the burying of Union soldiers in the south? -ABratchie | ||
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| + | Faust mentions how Southerners sometimes refused to give up the location of buried Union soldiers, even after the war. Is this rejection of reconciliation even over the dead a sign of the beginning of Southern resentment towards the North? It's interesting to note that they refused to work together, even over the simplicity of honoring the dead. - Victoria Y. | ||
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| + | '''In what ways did the frustrations of Southern Whites in the late 1860's manifest themselves later on?''' Initially, they desecrated graves and terrified those protecting them. Later, amidst a culture of reconciliation that Blight discusses, did these outburst disappear or simply manifest themselves in other ways?- D. Radtke | ||
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| + | == Blight == | ||
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| + | '''A couple times in Blight's book, African Americans' sentiments towards the war and slavery were mentioned. A good amount of the time it seemed like they wanted to look past the fact that they were enslaved and oppressed for hundreds of years. Was forgetting slavery something that most African Americans wanted to do in an attempt for reconciliation? This seems like a reaction that immediately followed the war but did not last long.''' -Avanness | ||
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| + | On the same note as Avanness comment, do you think this readiness to move on was fueled by the thought that they would be receiving the long denied civil rights? Did they simply desire to move on? - Victoria Y. | ||
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| + | '''Blight briefly talks about how women in the South initially remembered the war after the Confederacy's defeat. A theme of gloom seems overwhelming for many women in the south and how they remembered the war. How often did women in the south feel this "gloomy" emotion after the conclusion of the Civil War and how did it affect their memory of it? Also, what about Northern Women? What were their perceptions on the conclusion of the war and their memories?''' -ABratchie | ||
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| + | '''Why do we still embrace Blight's "blood feud"?''' Why haven't we,after one hundred and fifty years,reconciled the Civil War? -- R.King | ||
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| + | Blight discusses how the ideology of the "Lost Cause" developed after the Civil War had ended. The Richmond dispatch discussed that the South had fought for a "sense of rights under the Constitution," "and a conscientious conviction of the justice of their position." They went on to write how the South how sacrificed itself in order to find answers to unsettled questions left by the founding fathers. Do you agree with this statement?- Nick | ||
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| + | '''I find it incredibly odd that there were travel books published about the battlefields of the war just one year after the war was finished. Did people really visit the battlefields this soon after the war?''' With all the talk in the Faust reading about the trouble of burying bodies it makes me think people might have seen some fallen soldiers not yet buried. –Megan Mc. | ||
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| + | == Remembering Slavery == | ||
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| + | It is interesting to note that these accounts seem to be riddles with feelings of "undeserving" and that emancipation had little to no impact on life for slaves. In some accounts (like Felix Haywood's), emancipation is portrayed as overrated and responsible for making life harder for former slaves. ''' Why would these oral histories have such a common tone?''' Is it possible these accounts were conditioned by the interviewers and ingrained fear?- A. Askins | ||
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| + | Do you think that the use of songs in the slaves' memory of the Civil War and Emancipation impact or influence the memory for those who were relatively young at the time? --MK | ||
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| + | '''Why did some slaves "stick to (their)masters"?''' Was it because they were "too soft" as Felix Haywood stated or was it a relic of the oppression they lived with their entire lives? -- R.King | ||
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| + | On page 271 of Remembering Slavery, the story of Robert Glenn begins. Glenn’s story is interesting because even after he knew he was free, he decided to stay with his master for a year and even considered staying longer. How many freed slaves continued to stay on and live and work for their ex-masters? Why did they decide to continue to work for the people who had enslaved them even though they were now free? - Angie | ||
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| + | In Remembering Slavery, some slaves have good things to say about their masters. '''Do you think that they were influenced by Reconstruction or did they really mean it? Why is Mexico not discussed more often as a slave haven? Why did it take Kentucky so long to get ride of slavery since it was occupied by the Union for the entire war?''' Logan T | ||
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| + | Several of the accounts (although not all) we read regarding slavery discuss how the slaves were "content" with their living situations and that it really wasn't so bad. Full bellies and a roof over their heads made up for the "occasional beating". As we discussed in class, do you think this is a biased option based on who the interviewers chose to speak with? - Victoria Y. | ||
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| + | Throughout this reading, I was left thinking of what they say about someone who is deaf or blind. You ask this person, "what is like to be blind?" And they respond, "what is it like to see? It is only a disability to you." While I certainly do not want to justify the experience of slavery, it almost seems as though the speaker of this piece didn't necessarily want to be freed. How prevalent do you think this attitude was? --Cash | ||
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| + | '''If slaves knew nothing of emancipation, why the seemingly widespread celebrations upon news of its arrival?''' Susan Merritt described events "after freedom," as if it was a major turning point in her life. It seems to me that emancipation meant so many different things for different people. Some slaves had difficulties grasping the idea of freedom, while others celebrated the coming of emancipation as one of the most important moments of their lives. '''Is it possible, then, to determine concretely the overall effect of emancipation?'''- D. Radtke | ||
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| + | == General Questions == | ||
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| + | '''A theme I have noticed throughout our readings, often in Blight, and especially now in Faust, is that of a lost opportunity. There were seemingly small but important mistakes made in message (reconciliation) and administration (the failure to treat Confederate dead the same as Union dead) that were major factors in the formation of Lost Cause ideology. Is this the case? Or were these kinds of ideas inevitable? -'''GStan. | ||
