Away Down South, 2 Museums Grapple With the Civil War Story
Richmond | For Northerners, the history of the Civil War seems pretty much settled. We know that from the nation’s founding, economic and cultural differences — particularly those surrounding slavery — created tensions between the North and the South; that the elimination of slavery only fitfully became a Union goal during the war; and that it ultimately took a century for black Americans to glimpse the equality guaranteed by the nation’s ideals....
Things are interpreted more ambiguously here in what once was the capital of the Confederate States of America. Forty-three battles took place within 30 miles of the “White House of the Confederacy”: the pillared mansion where this self-declared nation housed its only president, Jefferson Davis, from 1861 to 1865. And while history may be typically written by the victors, here it seems to shape a looking-glass world in which perspectives are shifted and emphases altered, jarring emotions and assumptions.
In many ways the Civil War still seems to rage. In 2003, when a statue of Lincoln was donated for display outside the Civil War Visitor Center of the National Park Service, in downtown Richmond, immediate protests erupted — not over its maudlin character, but over the very idea of honoring an oppressor. The dedication ceremony was buzzed by a plane trailing a banner proclaiming, “Sic semper tyrannis,” which is not only Virginia’s motto (meaning “Thus, always, to tyrants”), but also what John Wilkes Booth is said to have called out while assassinating Lincoln.
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Things are interpreted more ambiguously here in what once was the capital of the Confederate States of America. Forty-three battles took place within 30 miles of the “White House of the Confederacy”: the pillared mansion where this self-declared nation housed its only president, Jefferson Davis, from 1861 to 1865. And while history may be typically written by the victors, here it seems to shape a looking-glass world in which perspectives are shifted and emphases altered, jarring emotions and assumptions.
In many ways the Civil War still seems to rage. In 2003, when a statue of Lincoln was donated for display outside the Civil War Visitor Center of the National Park Service, in downtown Richmond, immediate protests erupted — not over its maudlin character, but over the very idea of honoring an oppressor. The dedication ceremony was buzzed by a plane trailing a banner proclaiming, “Sic semper tyrannis,” which is not only Virginia’s motto (meaning “Thus, always, to tyrants”), but also what John Wilkes Booth is said to have called out while assassinating Lincoln.