As a kid, I was growing up in an era of celebration of the Civil War centennial, with a lot of 'Lost Cause' emphasis on the Confederacy. I used to play Civil War soldiers with my brothers as a child, and my older brother always insisted that he got to be Lee, and I got be Grant. I never knew that Grant won until quite some time had passed.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a childhood perspective shaped by historical narratives and the misconceptions they can create.
Drew Gilpin Faust recounts her childhood experience growing up during the Civil War centennial, a time when the 'Lost Cause' narrative glorified the Confederacy. Through her playful interactions with her brothers, she highlights how children often engage with historical figures without fully understanding the complexities or truths behind their stories, illustrating the impact of prevailing narratives on personal identity and understanding of history.
In practice
In a history class discussing different perspectives on the Civil War, this quote could be used to illustrate how childhood perceptions are shaped by societal narratives.
When I was growing up in Virginia, the Civil War was presented to me as glorious with dramatic courage and military honor. Later, I realized how death was central to the reality. It was at the core of women's lives. It's what they talked about most.
High school students ought to seek out campus communities where they feel not only empowered to engage their talents, but also challenged to leave their comfort zones. The ability to embrace new opportunities emerges, in part, from a willingness to take risks and to fail.
We have been telling and hearing and reading war stories for millennia. Their endurance may lie in their impossibility; they can never be complete, for the tensions and the contradictions within them will never be eliminated or resolved. That challenge is essential to their power and their attraction. War stories matter.
I've always done more than I ever thought I would. Becoming a professor - I never would have imagined that. Writing books - I never would have imagined that. Getting a Ph.D. - I'm not sure I would even have imagined that. I've lived my life a step at a time. Things sort of happened.
I lived in a world where social arrangements were taken for granted and assumed to be timeless. A child's obligation was to learn these usages, not to question them. The complexities of racial deportment were of a piece with learning manners and etiquette more generally.
As we have sought through the centuries to define ourselves as human beings and as nations through the prisms of history and literature, no small part of that effort has drawn us to the subject of war. We might even say that the humanities began with war and from war, and have remained entwined with it ever since.
When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was a respectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves. Their nations were old before Europe was born.
People want to know why the South is so interested in the Civil War. I had maybe, it's a rough guess, about fifty fistfights in my life. Out of those fifty fistfights, the ones that I had the most vivid memory of were the ones I lost. I think that's one reason why the South remembers the war more than the North does.
I went out to Charing Cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition.
I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
I grew up in the middle of a block where there was an Irish grocery store on one corner, an Italian bar on another corner and the Nazi Party was on the third corner.
The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
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