About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editor
Mike Hoefer

Editors
elwood
susanthe
William Tucker
The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes

Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

150 Years Ago...

by: cblodg

Tue Apr 12, 2011 at 09:53:09 AM EDT


150 years. Think about that. This great experiment of ours has not been around all that long. For the first 85 years America struggled to define what it would be, where would we go and how would we get there. It took us 85 years to reach the seminal event that was the Civil War. A couple of years ago, while at a reenactment here in New England, I watched a company out in the field struggling to drill and I thought to myself, "If the old boys could see us now, they'd be mortified." I don't think this today. Today, I believe the old boys would be honored just to know someone remembers them. We have these reminders all around us.

When the Boys of '61 returned home, they weren't boys anymore. Indeed, they were hardened men. They had seen the worst of human nature in their struggle to re-unite a battered and broken country. Almost instantly memorials would spring up across the country (in some states it was law that each town had to have a monument to the Civil War soldiers). Many of these were erected with the money raised by the soldiers themselves. Clearly, they wanted to be remembered for what they had done.

Now, time has passed. The once hardened Boys of '61 are gone, their voices silent. No more can they tell the story of what they did. It is up to us, those who have prospered from their sacrifice, to carry on their legacy. What's more, we know this. We have been told to remember them by one of our nation's leaders:

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...

That is the mission statement given to us, the living, to remember. Remember their sacrifice. Remember their struggle. Most of all, remember them.

cblodg :: 150 Years Ago...
Tags: , , , , , , , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
150 Years Ago... | 0 comments

Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox