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Fields
of Fury By James M. McPherson
by
Stephen Wunderli
In 1976, my ignorance
was at its peak. I was 16 years old. My brother was 17, and not
much more aware of the world than I was. We grew up in Salt Lake
City, in an enclave of generic homes too new to have any real history
to prop them up. So my father decided to pack the station wagon
and haul us all across the Country, stopping at major historical
points, taking the nickel tour and relying on our mother to read
tourist tracts between chapters of Old Yeller as we bounced from
point of interest to memorial to Howard Johnson's. Suddenly the
world became longer than an eight-track tape, more in-depth than
Jonathon Livingston Seagull, and stocked with events more meaningful
than Woodstock.
We toured Gettysburg
and Williamsburg. Held the primitive surgeon tools for removing
a gangrene limb. Collected lead bullets and tried to understand
why our Nation had at one time been at war with itself. It was a
question that lasted long after the trip was over. I had grown up
reciting the Pledge of Allegiance: “One Nation, indivisible…”
there was something schizophrenic about the civil war. I understood
the issue of slavery, why human beings should not be held in bondage
for any reason. And I understood the Federal versus State governmental
view. But what I could not, and still do not understand, is the
brutality that the opposing arguments created. Perhaps I never will.
However, all school-age
children should understand the history of the war itself. It defines
us to a degree. Not just the war, but the resulting peace and building
up of a Nation. Atheneum has published a remarkably easy to understand
book on the civil war titled: Fields of Fury, by James M. McPherson.
It is outlined chronologically, stocked with period paintings and
photographs and features an easy to read style, sections of quick
facts and diagrams of battle sequences and strategies.
We may never fully understand
why this Country was at war with itself. But it is a lesson in history
our children should never forget.
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© 2002 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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