Today is the 153^rd anniversary of the first time the men of the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry saw combat. In two days, we will reach the 153^rd anniversary of their second fight: the assault on Battery Wagner. It was there that the men of the 54^th proved that they could fight . . . by losing nearly half of the men who went into battle.

The 54^th Massachusetts was one of the first regiments of black soldiers raised during the Civil War. Theirs is a story of courage—of every kind.

It takes courage to do the right thing, even if people think less of you because of it. Robert Gould Shaw was in a good position as a captain when he was asked to command a regiment of “colored” soldiers. It was a post that would subject him to ridicule, maybe even ruin his future prospects. After initially refusing the position, Shaw reconsidered and accepted command of the 54^th. He determined to prove that his men could fight as well as white men.

It takes courage to keep going, despite an uncertain future. When the 54^th headed south, they did so knowing that the Confederate Congress had declared that every black soldier captured would be sold into slavery. Every white officer in command of black troops would be executed. Would their own government defend them, if they were captured? They had no idea. It was not until after the fight at Battery Wagner that the U.S. Government threatened retaliation on Confederate prisoners if the Confederacy went through with their word.

It takes courage to risk your life to save another person’s life. In their first taste of combat, the 54^th skirmished on James Island, SC, contesting every inch and holding their position long enough to save the trapped 10^th Connecticut. One Connecticut soldier wrote home after the battle: “But for the bravery of three companies of the Massachusetts 54th (colored), our whole regiment would have been captured…they fought like heroes.” Later, other white regiments greeted them with the cries: “Well done! We heard your guns!” and “Hurrah boys! You saved the 10th Connecticut!”

And then, there’s the courage exhibited on July 18, 1863.

A mere two days after James Island, the regiment faced a much greater test. Col. Shaw offered his regiment to lead the assault on Battery Wagner. It was a place of honor . . . but a costly one. Col. Shaw had his own reservations as to whether he would survive the fight. Yet as the regiment prepared to advance, one of his captains recalled of Col. Shaw, “His bearing was composed and graceful, his cheek had somewhat paled, and the slight twitching of the corners of his mouth plainly showed that the whole cost was counted.”

When Gen. Strong pointed to the flag bearer and asked who would carry the flag on if the man should fall, Col. Shaw set an example when he calmly replied, “I will.” He then told his men, “I want you to prove yourselves men. The eyes of thousands will look on what you do tonight.”

The regiment advanced through cannon and rifle fire, across a ditch filled with several feet of water, across buried land mines, across sharpened stakes and felled trees with sharpened branches, and up the sloping wall of Wagner. Col. Shaw reached the top of the wall and cried, “Forward, 54^th!” and fell dead.

Rather than lose their nerve at the death of their commander, the men of the 54^th hung on. They fought hand-to-hand. Officers picked up rifles alongside their men. One man’s broken arm didn’t stop him from piling cartridges on his chest for Lt. Edward Emerson to use.

The regimental color-bearer, John Wall, fell, but Sgt. William H. Carney picked up the flag. He knelt on the wall with the colors until the regiment fell back. By the time he reached the hospital, Sgt. Carney had been wounded in the head, breast, arm, and both legs. He simply told the men in the hospital, “I but did my duty. The dear old flag never touched the ground.” For his courage, Sgt. Carney received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1900. His was the earliest action for which the Medal of Honor was awarded to a black soldier.

The regiment advanced with about 600 men and lost nearly 300. Although more Union troops finally joined the fighting, the 54^th was initially unsupported. Nevertheless, in this, the second time they had seen combat, the men of the 54^th did not falter or give up on their mission. They not only proved themselves men, but they proved themselves to be men of the highest caliber.

Last week I was asked, how can dioramas help us understand war in general?  It’s a question I’ve never considered, and the answer I found took me a little by surprise.  A diorama is such a simple thing, and yet its meaning and purpose is so much richer than I ever thought.  Here is my answer.

It depends on the focus of the diorama.  Typically, dioramas focus on the overall battle or story of the given subject.  I wonder if ours are unique in that we want to tell the stories of individuals.  All of our larger dioramas have information panels with stories of individuals or units, as well as the general overview of what you’re looking at.

As I write the stories to put on display, I am continually struck by how much we can relate to the people back then.  At the Angle, there was Capt. Michael Spessard, who had just seen his son fall mortally wounded on the way across the fields.  I think every parent can relate to his feelings as he reaches the Union position at the stone wall.  Is it any surprise to a father or mother reading his story, that he will refuse to surrender, and even after his would-be captors wrestle his sword away from him, that he will chase them away, pelting them with rocks?  Or the story of Sgt. Andrew Tozier—growing up with an abusive alcoholic father, but going on to earn the Medal of Honor on Little Round Top at Gettysburg.  How many kids nowadays need to hear his story and learn that their character–not their past–dictates their future and their potential?

We live in a culture that focuses on death and pain, ghosts and gore.  Studying war, you find yourself in a strange clash between destruction and glory, pain and valor, death and salvation.  For all the stories of pools of blood, you can find stories of rescue and relief.  Col. Oates losing his brother on Little Round Top, Spessard losing his son, Capt. Cocke losing sight of his brother at the Angle.  And then you have Pvt. Grine venturing between the firing lines to bring wounded enemy soldiers back to safety and the field hospitals, you have the story of John Chamberlain’s relief at finding his brothers Tom and Lawrence safe after their hard fighting leading the 20th Maine.

In the paintings of the great masters, the most striking ones are dark with a ray of light piercing through.  I think that is why we keep coming back to study war—to search for those stories of light, of man at his best.  It’s not the stories of destruction; it’s the stories of standing firm, of doing what is right, of helping others, of determination, desperation, and mercy.  And if you let those stories sink in, you can’t help but think, “Would I do that?  Could I do that?”  If our dioramas can interest people in those stories and inspire them to be the type of person who stands firm, who does the right thing, who thinks of the people around them and not of themselves when trouble comes, I think our cats will have done their work.

Last night, Rebecca placed Cat 8000 on our diorama of the Angle. Ever since Cat #2000 on our census, we have kept track of each thousand with a special cat-soldier.

Cat 8000 is a gunner from Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing’s Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery, but he is not standing anywhere near a cannon. Instead, he wields his rammer at a Confederate clubbing one of his fellow gunners at the wall in front of the Copse of Trees.

As the Confederates poured over the wall and Lt. Cushing’s demolished guns were abandoned, some of his gunners joined the 69th Pennsylvania instead of retreating. They wielded handspikes and sponge-staffs in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, likely joining their infantrymen comrades in, as members of the 69th put it, “looking and praying for help” and thinking they “were all gone.”

You can recognize Cat 8000 by the black vest that he is wearing over his red shirt.

On June 9, 1863, the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War was fought at Brandy Station, Virginia. Union troopers caught Gen. Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry by surprise at dawn, beginning a day-long battle. Whereas cavalry usually fought dismounted, the battle at Brandy Station moved so quickly that the men remained mounted, attacking and counter-attacking in grand, mounted cavalry charges.

Although the Confederates held their ground and therefore won, the battle became more important for another reason. After two years of fighting, the Union cavalry finally proved they were the equals of the Southern horsemen. In less than a month, these cavalrymen would need their new-found confidence as they moved north to Gettysburg.

This morning, I headed off to work with the usual “life’s problems” rattling through my mind. But as I pulled my car out of our garage, I caught sight of little American flags stuck into the ground on the other side of the iron fence that runs along the driveway. Our property backs up to Annex D of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Each Memorial Day, the graves are marked with thousands of American flags lovingly placed to honor our fallen soldiers. At that moment, it struck me.

Many of the soldiers buried in that cemetery died young – 22, 21, 18… They never had a chance to have the little annoyances of everyday 32-year-old life. They had dreams and plans just like I do, but they never had a chance to pursue them. Perhaps it is a strange way to think of their sacrifice, but it really helped me today. It was a gentle dose of perspective, and it actually made me thankful for the annoyances of life that I am blessed to experience.

To all our veterans and especially their comrades who fell and never experienced their futures, Thank You.

Recently, we’ve been listening to a stack of new Civil War-related CDs. Some are traditional Irish songs, some are traditional folk tunes. The great thing about music is its ability to draw us in. Whether the song has lyrics (the Civil War soldiers’ song “Tenting Tonight” or the modern song “The Day the Sun Stood Still” from the musical “The Civil War”) or is purely instrumental (“The Road Home” by Altan), music draws us in. Music evokes joy or heartbreak. It can make us cry for people we don’t know–even fictional characters!

Music can be a way for a nation to process events, just as we as individuals might journal to process a traumatic event. I recently heard that during World War II, one way to survive the chaos in the world was to write humorous songs, such as those poking fun at Adolf Hitler. In the wake of John Brown’s Raid in 1859, many songs were written about him.

A song can bring us together as a community–locally, nationally, or perhaps even across national boundaries. A song drew together the weary soldiers on the night of July 2, 1863 here at Gettysburg, uniting blue and gray in thoughts of home as they knelt in blood-soaked fields. There is certainly something special about music when it can draw such opposing forces together.

Perhaps the power of music is that through its beauty, grandeur, light-heartedness, and pathos, it draws us out of our selfish personal world and into a new experience where we begin to see and care about others.

Spring has finally arrived here in Gettysburg! The buds and flowers have been trying to convince me of it, but when the temperatures are still rather cold, it’s hard to believe that it’s April. After all, we had snow flurries a week ago. But now, the weather is warm and the sun is shining, and it’s a great time to come out and avoid the summertime crowds while traipsing the battlefield and perusing museums and shops in town.

It’s kind of crazy to realize that Spring is also the time of year when the armies would be mobilizing again after their winter camps. While we enjoy the weather sipping tea on our front porch, it’s hard to remember that in the end of March and early April during the Civil War, men were already fighting and dying. Think Appomattox and the fighting that led up to it.

Take a moment to stand in the Spring sunshine and ponder the cost paid by those who came before us. What is the significance of it? Does it still matter? Do battlefields still matter? Why is it important that we study history? Why is it important that we preserve the bits and pieces that we still have from times and people long past?

Today is the anniversary of the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to General U.S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Va. We had the privilege of traveling to Appomattox for the 150th anniversary last year. One thing I took away from the trip (besides red Virginia mud!) was a new appreciation for Gen. Grant and the way he handled the surrender. I touched on this briefly last week, but wanted to share some more thoughts on the topic.

Gen. Lee and his army were the enemy. But Gen. Grant recognized that they were now his countrymen again. He gave the Confederates generous terms, and every decision was designed to promote recovery (allowing them to take their horses or mules to work their farms) and peace (ordering his own men not to cheer and rub it in). He even had rations issued to feed the starving soldiers. Because Gen. Grant saw his enemy as human beings and not just defeated foes, healing began immediately after the end of the fiercely-fought war.

What do you think? As you think about your life and the people you disagree with, would you be able to set aside past disagreements and take that first step towards reconciliation and healing? Are we able to see the humanity in people we have fought with, whether a spouse or an enemy combatant, and show them kindness instead of rubbing it in? Gen. Grant could not change the heart of a nation, but he did what he could to start the healing. We can follow his example and take that first step forward in our own relationships, towards healing.

As we near the anniversary of the surrender of Gen. Lee’s Confederate army at Appomattox, I’ve been doing some thinking about the man who brought it all about–Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

Before the war, Grant seemed like a failure.  He tried his hand at all sorts of jobs, but none worked out.  The only thing he seemed good at was soldiering–but the United States was at peace.  When the Civil War broke out, Grant returned to the army and, it seemed, his element.  While Union generals kept losing to Lee in Virginia, Grant steadily won in the western theater.  On July 4, 1863, he accepted the surrender of Vicksburg, MS, effectively cutting the Confederacy in half.  Taking Vicksburg launched him into the nation’s view.  When Pres. Lincoln placed him in command of all the Union armies in 1864, Grant won the war in a year.

Gen. Grant was not a pretty fighter; he did what he had to, slugging it out at Petersburg, Cold Harbor, and the Wilderness.  He was not a dandy; his photos show a simple soldier who has seen too much war.  But a pretty dandy was not what the North needed.  Lincoln needed a soldier to reunite the country.  Gen. Grant showed that, as a soldier, he knew exactly how to end the war.  It has been said that he and Gen. Sherman gave the world its first taste of ‘total war.’  But he knew it was necessary, in order to bring peace.  And when all was said and done, he showed–through his kindness to the conquered Confederates of Lee’s army–that Southerners were not his enemies and his ‘total war’ tactics were not personal.  He did what was necessary to win, and then he did what was in his power to bring healing to the torn nation.

All his life, Grant seemed like a fish out of water–but when all hell broke loose, he was exactly what this nation needed.  Perhaps you are at a loss about your purpose in life.  Be patient.  It took U.S. Grant over 40 years to find his.