The American Civil War, (or War of Northern Aggression as Southerners like to call it) was both a tragic, and ironic period in
this nation’s history.
Sons and fathers found themselves fighting
on opposite sides of the conflict; sometimes quite literally. For there are
stories of sons killing their own fathers, and fathers killing their own sons!
One famous story involved a Union father firing on a lone Confederate picket.
When “Yankee” forces overran the area, this father realized he has murdered his
own son!
There were inconsistencies in that war;
things that should not have happened, but which seems to happen in most wars.
For enemy combatants found ways to communicate, and even mingle with one
another.
Union and Confederate officers had trained
together at West Point, prior to the War; before the advent of the Two Americas. Relatives and friends
chose opposing sides. Various ethnic and religious groups found themselves on
opposite sides of the war. Irishmen fought Irishmen. Catholics fought Catholics.
The combatants had a common language; a common history.
But Union and Confederate units
occasionally called truces, so that they could fraternize and share news. They
would verbally banter across hills and rivers with phrases like, “See you in
hell, Johnny Reb,” with the response echoing back, “See you in hell, Billy
Yank.”
One particular custom was both curious and
beneficial. Newspapers, salt, candy, and coffee were floated across rivers on
tiny, “home-made” rafts, as Rebel and Union men bartered “dry goods.”
And there are early photographs of Yankees
and Rebels swimming in the Potomac River together,… in their “birthday suits,”
minus their familiar Blue and Gray uniforms. Curious, but I have reflected that
had all that multitude of troops converted to nudism, the war would have, no
doubt, ended prematurely!
At the battle of Fredericksburg, one kindly
soldier moved among the wounded of both sides, giving the dying sips of water;
a dozen canteens slung over his shoulders. Likenesses of that soldier, and a
wounded enemy “comrade” still grace that battlefield, and commemorate his noble
efforts.
Ironic. Peculiar. Unusual.
For these “Enemy-Brothers in Arms” were
cruel in their collective wrath. There was the double-mindedness that included
fraternization and retribution.
Cannons were fired point-blank into swarms
of stampeding troops, reducing them to red mist. Swords were brought down on
the hapless heads of blue and gray, alike. Bayonets sliced easily through rib
cages and bullets fell like leaden rain.
They were both friends and foes. The
mentality of helping and hurting was mixed, and for their European brothers,
hard to understand.
I think that we, as Christians, emulate
those dearly departed souls of the Civil War. Our behavior patterns can be
double-minded and self-serving. The Convenient is, oft times, the order of the
day.
Jesus’ Brother asked a poignant question:
“Can both sweet and bitter water flow out of the same well?”(James 3:11-12, MPV)
His implication was that such a thing ought not to be.
A well-loved scripture puts it this way: “A
friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs
17:17, KJV) The inconsistencies of the past must be relegated to the past. The
irony of “having it both ways” must flee away. The ebb and flow of our
emotional oceans must be stilled.
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