The Civil War: One Hundred Fifty Years Later

[William Annis Davis]

Sometimes we often think of 150 years as a long time and in most situations it is. Not in history though.  April 12, 2011 will  mark the 150-th anniversary of the start of the Civil War  (Or the War of Northern Agression, the War Between the States, whatever your prefernce might be.). With the shelling of Fort Sumter in the  harbor at Charleston , South Carolina, four long years of terrible carnage were to follow.

    Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that my mother who passed away a couple of years ago and whose grandfather had fought in the Civil War with the 17-Maine Regiment ,wounded ,captured, and placed in Libby Prison in Richmond and was  eventually  freed in a prisoner exchange, was someone my mother had talked with  who had marched before President Abraham Lincoln and had passed on those events to me !

     My point here is this is a great opportunity for all of us to re-look at an event that still reverberates til this day socially, economically and spiritually and politically. I hope you will contribute stories and comments  of the impact  that this incredible event in our history has had on  you personally , your family history, how you view battlefield and museum visits  and philosophy of war and peace, as well as in many other areas such as medicine, espionage ,women in war, ordinance and arrms and religion just to mention a few.. There are still so many stories out there to be told, and this anniversary is a golden opportunity opportunity to renew the dialogue and try to figure out the mystery and majesty of this war which still prompts so many emotions in so many people.