Memorial Day Cinematic Tribute
Stand tall and proud. (Time Dot Com)
Memorial Day traces many of its roots to the aftermath of the Civil War. The following videos help capture a reason we’re observing this day.
The first video shows colorized Civil War photos. This shows the “human face” in this war in a way that black and white photos don’t fully capture. Photos of casualties included.
This next video appears to be spliced from different scenes from two different videogames. One of these videos is land war-centric, and the other is sea war-centric. In addition to showing people fighting, it also shows casualties. It’s World War II themed.
The next video is based on a movie, Hacksaw Ridge. This movie is based on a true story of a medic that earned the Medal of Honor.
In this video, animated graphs show the war dead, from World War II, in perspective.
In the first video above, there is a photo that shows Union Soldier remains sitting on a cart. There is one account that I read where newly freed men constructed a new graveyard. They went to a mass grave containing Union dead. They unearthed many of the remains and transported them. The destination?
A new graveyard that they constructed for this purpose. Then, they held services giving the Soldiers a proper Christian burial. They followed this with a parade that ended at the new graveyard. By the time the activities were done, flowers and flower petals blanketed the new graves.
Category: We Remember
Rest in peace, brothers and sisters.
I’m headed to Antietam for the Memorial Day commemoration. Such a paradox: a beautiful location where such horrible carnage took place.
That must be amazing MC.. Just on shift here, so not sure we’ll be able to attend anything (nothing in our district). Be safe all, and tip one for me, in salute to the fallen.
Half-mast the Flag and ensure the crew observes appropriately in exchange for a holiday schedule. “Hacksaw Ridge,” “To Hell and Back,” “We Were Soldiers,” and “Gettysburg” wouldn’t go amiss as viewing options to go with said holiday schedule.
I have AAV this week, since my wedding anniversary (two anniversaries, actually; I’m Catholic and she wanted an outdoor wedding, so we did both on consecutive days) is a couple days prior. We are throwing a small family get-together. No barbecue due to rain, so we’re crockpotting a bunch of beast flesh instead.
Good deal TOW, yeah, you hit my plan almost exactly.. Not a lot of luck on the “holiday schedule” here, we have “spring cleaning” this set, and yesterday was rope training with a neighbor department, but we’ll have an easy afternoon anyway. Be safe out west!
MC,
Thank you for sharing that.
Antietam has always been on our Bucket List, so we will be heading there next month to visit.
Yes, it is indeed a paradox.
Many of the old WWI and WWII battlefields in France are similarly beautiful.
Very beautiful and very moving. Whenever I’m at Bloody Lane, it’s hard to hold back the tears thinking of all the suffering that happened there.
You will not regret your trip. And Maryland is a gorgeous state. Enjoy.
I’m lucky. I live in Frederick, Maryland and Antietam and South Mountain and Gettysburg and Harper’s Ferry are within a 45 minute drive.
I’ve never been to a commemoration ceremony here and this will be my last chance. I’m moving out of the country.
Thank You, MC.
Really looking forward to our visit. It’s history.
Have visited the other sites you mentioned…have family members (via marriage) from several generations ago buried at Harper’s Ferry.
Lots of history in our own backyard, i.e. our nation.
Are you moving out to the country…or are you leaving the country?
Headed to Costa Rica.
By the way, the ceremony is being live broadcast on Facebook.
Please always stay in touch with us thru TAH when you move.😊
Thank You for the info on the live broadcast.
I visited Antietam battlefield with my parents in 2010. We spent several days each in Gettysburg and the DC area on the same trip while me and my Dad went full history nerd. Incidentally the only time I’ve ever been east of the Rockies. Being a SoCal native, I was shocked at how green Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were in July.
I hope to take my kids on that same trip someday.
There are a ton of battlefields within an hour or so drive of National Fire Academy in Emmittsburg MD (Gettysburg is less than 20 miles). If you ever go back for a 2 week class, be sure to take some trips on the weekend TOW
Antietam (or as we say, Sharpsburg) The bloodiest single day in American History. Been there, along with G’burg, Petersburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Shiloh among many others. Walking thru the Cornfield, Sunken Road/Bloody Lane will bring out the chill bumps and raise the hairs on your neck.
I am compelled to note you incorrectly referred to the War of Northern Aggression, or Southern Independence, as the Civil War. Just so you know, any mention of the Confederacy or honoring the men and women who did their duty and/or died for their belief is now politically incorrect in certain quarters, Arkansas being one of them. Today I will represent the Warrant Officer Protection Association at the Arkansas observance at the Little Rock National Cemetery on what used to be Confederate Blvd. However, when the airport was renamed Hilly-Billy Airport a few years back, there were those who were offended for tourists to see the Confederate Blvd sign on the way to town from the airport so they changed the name. Today we should honor the fallen of all of America’s wars, not just the currently politically correct ones. Can I get an amen.
I referred to it as the Civil War, as that’s how it’s referred to in the history books. I prefer to call it the Southern Rebellion or Southern Insurrection, and the Confederates as Rebels.
I saw a video, done in the late 1920s, of folk who were in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. There was a guy there who claimed to be a veteran of that war. Instead of calling himself a Confederate veteran, he referred to the war as “War for rebellion”.
On a side note, my great great grandfather answered the call to help put down this insurrection. He was assigned to one of the units that fell under Ulysses S. Grant’s command.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who has followed my rambling comments knows my feelings and history on this subject. City of Atlanta just removed the name from Confederate Blvd where the Old Soldiers Home was located. We must remove all vestiges of the markers and statues that have kept people oppressed and leave their pedestals on a nightly basis to spread terror. /s/
On a local note, a City Councilperson/County Commissioner is attempting to change the name of a major Interstate intersection from an MIA Flight Surgeon Name to the name of her husband, a long time serving State Senator who both have done all they can to “keep them on the plantation.” Grrrrrrr
Good post on the videos the besig. Took me awhile to get thru them all and it was well worth it. I have a reprint of an original colorized from black and white WBTS picture book gifted to me by niece and nephew-in-law. Originals were individually hand colored by artists commissioned for that work by the Brady and Gardeners of the day. An original is worth a small fortune.
lestweforget….Deo Vindice
5th commented:
“…a Citycouncil Person/County Commissioner is attempting to change the name of a major Interstate intersection from an MIA Flight Surgeon Name to the name of her husband, a long time serving State Senator who both have done all they can to “keep them on the plantation.”
It’s stuff such as this that burns me out.
So sad that folks are taking things to the extreme.
All for political correctness…and votes.
neverforget
For honoring the Confederate dead from the rank-and-file, yes.
For honoring the Confederate leadership, no. They simultaneously receive both my pity and my contempt. While I can respect their competence as military leaders and soldiers, I will not honor them.
The Confederate leadership were, in my view, traitors by the precise Constitutional definition of the term. This includes all of the Confederate military leadership.
Further: virtually all of the Confederate high command were serving in the US Army at the time the Confederacy was forming – and broke the oath they’d sworn to uphold the Constitution. Unlike the Confederate rank and file, they cannot claim they didn’t do so knowingly and were just fighting to defend their homes. They’d previously sworn loyalty to the USA – and voluntarily chose to change allegiance.
I have pity for them for being forced into a no-win situation; choosing between home and nation is one of the hardest choices I can imagine. Yet I have contempt for them as traitors, regardless of their reasons.
Before you label this the rantings of some “damn Yankee” – I was born and mostly raised in the Deep South. One side of my family has deep roots there; I almost certainly had ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. And if you want to compare who was born farther south in the old Confederacy, we can do that too – but unless you were born in Texas south of about Austin; southern Louisiana; or peninsular Florida, there’s a very good chance you’ll lose.
I’m personally glad the Confederacy lost. Their cause – fighting to preserve their “peculiar institution” (slavery) using “States’ Rights” as a fig-leaf justification – was morally bankrupt from day one. And we have that same mentality (a holdover from slavery days) to thank for nearly a century of post-Reconstruction “Jim Crow” and legal segregation.
History should be remembered, yes. But it should be remembered accurately – not “spun” to hide the warts, as Confederate apologists have done since Reconstruction ended.
Hondo…
This could be a start of a new thread…we all have different perspectives and opinions on the Confederacy and their Leadership and that is OK.
Don’t agree with everything you wrote, but that is OK as well.
Was born in the North rather than the South. My upbringing as an Army Brat took me to various parts of the US and the World. Having that type of background taught me to be open-minded and look at life thru other folk’s lives.
Have viewed the
Confederacy and the Union and their Leadership thru various US Army Military schooling and Staff Rides to Civil War Battlefields.
Based on all above, have a different persective on Confederate Leadership than you, but again, that is OK.
I respect what you wrote. Thank You for sharing.
One thing most offended by the Confederate officers fail to understand is that at that time most people viewed their respective states as their “country,” not the USA. The national government was viewed by most, especially in the South, as a kind of federation, and not one’s nation state. They viewed secession like the present day Brits view leaving the EU. To the people of the South, it was like the EU using military force to stop Brexit. There is also nothing in the federal documents of the time that said states did not have the right to secede after joining the U.S.
That was the case during the confederation period, with regards to each state being on par with a traditional nation-state. The Declaration of Independence wasn’t a single declaration by the United States, it was 13 British colonial provinces making a joint written statement… One that recognized each of them as a nation state. The ratification of the Constitution acknowledged that these 13 different nation-states were coming together into a single nation, with each state preserving its own sovereign powers less the powers they previously had to directly interact with other nations as equals. That was ceded to what was now being recognized as the federal government… The highest artificial power within a nation. From then until now, the concept of individual state sovereignty still existed. But, from the time the Constitution was ratified, the states took a position normally reserved for provinces, deferring nation-state level powers to the central government. Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution makes that clear that the United States as a whole was a single nation. Amendment 10 of the Constitution states that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution were reserved for the States and the people. The Constitution delegates federal level powers… Powers possessed by a nation… To the federal government. Even the individual State governments recognized that fact and tried to leverage the federal government to pass laws in efforts to overrule state laws that they opposed. The example with regards to Brexit and EU isn’t a good one, as we’ve seen mechanisms in place that allowed for such an exit to occur. Effective the ratification of the Constitution, the individual States no longer did things like engaging in equal footing with other countries. They didn’t keep sending ambassadors to other countries, make one on one treaties with them, etc. Article 4 Section 3 provided for the addition of new States into the Union. The Constitution didn’t provide for the exit of a State. Had this been an arrangement where each state was a nation, this exit provision would’ve been in place. It wasn’t, as it was clear… Read more »
Actually, Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (the full title of the document) explicitly specified that the Union so created was to be perpetual. This was unanimously affirmed by each state prior to the Articles becoming effective on 1 March 1781 (the last state to ratify, Maryland, didn’t do so until Feb 1781 and didn’t formally sign the Articles until 1 March 1781).
The Constitution was thus drafted at a time when the United States was understood by all to be a perpetual union; when no mechanism for secession was defined; and when all states had explicitly accepted these conditions prior to entry into the Union.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp#art13
That’s even better, takes the ambiguity out of whether a state could leave or whether it was a part of a nation state as of the time they hammered out the Constitution.
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 had addressed the United States as a collective group of state entities rather than a single state entity, using “United States” in lieu of consistently using the individual states, with the US Congress in position of making recommendations to the states to ensure that applicable provisions of the treaty be applied.
So I used the ratification of the Constitution as a reference point above.
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=6&page=transcript
Hondo, hard to argue with anything you just wrote…
The bulk of the Confederate dead were those rank and file… As is usually the case…
A political war, started by politicians, that was more about the money and the power than anything else. I had ancestors on both sides (very distant on the Federal side). Our Organization, The Camp of the Unknown Soldier, pays Honor to the Soldiers of BOTH sides, equally…the leaders not so much…the politicians…not at all.
George Washington had sworn allegiance to, and took, the King’s Shilling for a good while there.
George Washington – and all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, for that matter – would have indeed been hanged as traitors by England had the Revolutionary War ended in an English victory. Franklin – perhaps apocryphally – put it best in a statement attributed to him regarding having signed that declaration: “We must all now hang together, or we shall assuredly hang separately.” (smile)
However, history also shows that a successful revolution makes prosectution for treason by the losing side (e.g., the former “mother country”/colonial power) rather problematic. (smile)
Club Manager, USA ret wrote:
“Today we honor the fallen of all of America’s war…”
Amen, Chief. Amen.
Kudos to you on your mission today.
Clear reminders of the cost in lives for defeating the evil of the Rising Sun and Nazi Germany.
I have my own unpopular opinions on the Civil War so I’ll leave that alone today.
Best to all of you today, a day to remember and be grateful for the kind of men and women who are willing to give all for this great nation.
VOV, Another Pat, and thebesig, Club Manager, et al, with all your comments above, on another, appropriate day, I’d love to see a thread with all of you expounding on your views of the war. While I like to think that i have a good understanding of it, unlike a certain seagull, I’m more than happy to admit that I don’t know everything about such things, and would be willing to change my opinions, given facts to support the change.
Thanks for all that you all post, it gives anyone with an open mind a chance to learn.
Peace to all.
(except pos posers…)
3/10/MED/b
Best wishes to WILLTED WILLY!.
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Requesting anyone who has the internet smarts/capacity to put on “Mrs. McGrath…”
I would appreciate it.
Thanks. 3/10/MED/b. out