My friends in the book club know that when anyone proposes a monthly selection about the Civil War, I more or less curl up into a ball and disappear, muttering epithets. It's not because I think I know more about it than anyone else, or that I think the subject is boring.
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At yesterday's meeting, we discussed The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which in my case I had not read, and one lady read a long passage which she said makes her cry. As she cried and cried, I thought about Gone With the Wind. I've read GWTW many, many times, but it always turns out the same way, with the South defeated, Scarlett desolate, and me crying my eyes out most of the way through it. I don't want to do that in public.
*Representing nothing on God's earth now,
And naught in the waters below it,
As the pledge of a nation that's passed away,
Keep it, dear friend, and show it;
Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale this trifle will tell,
Liberty born of patriots' dream
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.
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Of course, it deserved to fall. But the whole thing is still too sad to think about much.
11 comments:
"It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,
And each Southern patriot believed it."
Very moving post, Mom. I had never read this poem, but it speaks volumes.
Today I finished re-reading Bruce Catton's single-volume history, "The Civil War." I've been reading Civil War histories for at least 30 years, but I tend to get lost in the details. So I made a 2-page timeline, focusing just on the most major events. It took me a few hours to put together - everything I found online was much longer. But it was an interesting exercise.
That verse is very moving. Excuse my Canadian ignorance, but are those words on the back of the confederate bill? I also find Gone with the Wind a very emotional story.
Ruth
So is GWTW the reason you don't like books set during the Civil War?
Yes it did deserve to fall, and yes it is still sad. And yes it could happen all over again if the current "patriot" movement has its way.
Susie: No, it's because they upset me, and I have controversial opinions about that era. It just makes me uneasy to get into discussions about the civil war with a bunch of women, if you want to be frank about it.
Ruth: In Gone With the Wind, an old veteran named Will Benteen reads this poem off the back of a Confederate note to a gathering at Tara. This is in the book, but not in the movie.
Ruth: Someone had handwritten the poem on the back of the bill.
Thanks Joanne, its obviously time for me to re-read Gone With the Wind.
Ruth
Jo, I understand. I too have controversial (in some circles) opinions of the CW. But I'm all too happy to voice mine. Some people need to wake up and smell the magnolias.
I wondered how someone wrote such a long poem on the back of a bank note, so I looked it up. The Internet is a wonderful thing: "According to the Web site civilwarpoetry.org, following Confederate Gen. J.E. Johnston's April 1865 surrender of his forces in North Carolina, Maj. Sidney Alroy Jonas penned these verses on the back of a half-printed $500 Confederate bill at the request of a young Northern lady who wanted to take the note home with her as a souvenir."
BTW, I'm glad you enjoyed The Fortune of War.
I don't remember for sure, but Will might have just had a copy of the poem instead of a bank note with the writing on it.
I read the whole poem on that website. The rest of it isn't as moving as the first 2 stanzas. Thanks, Jed.
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