The Epilogue Class (1971) Gathers- 1970 - The Xavier Class Lamented By Antonin Scalia - Part VII

My account of Xavier High School's last years as a "thoroughly military academy" to quote one of Xavier's most famous if not most beloved sons - Antonin Scalia Class of 1953 - might appear to have stalled, but I've been working on a difficult section.  Thankfully, John Frank has come to my rescue.  John reports here on the 45th reunion of the Class of 1971 and the memories they shared.

After they graduated, the military become optional.  When I was a freshman Mr Lux SJ had been my Latin and homeroom teacher.  In 1971 Father Lux became the Prefect of Discipline. He recently explained the denouement to me in an email.

 The sixties were certainly a different era. As you know I took over that revamped office from Fr. Heavey.  During a couple of years before my ordination in June 1971, Father Wood was the rector at XHS. There were continuing conversations during those years on the role of the military and the impact of the Vietnam war on the student morale at XHS. With great deliberation and after exhaustive consultation with all the constituencies of the school, Father Wood made the decision to have an optional JROTC program at the school. From 71 through my three years in that office the JROTC program had a 33% enrollment. And there was no conflict whatsoever when I was moderator with those in or out of the military. The student body without exception accepted the decisions of other students. I worked with Sergeant Major Carney for those years and he was a great teacher and leader by example. 

Incidentally, in the dictionary next to the definition of soldier they could put a picture of Sergeant Major Carney.

Anyway, I'm kind of a numbers guy, so I've got to say that even though they still call it a Regiment, at 1/3 of the student body it is more of an under-strength battalion making John's classmate Bob Meisner, the last Colonel. My friend Jerry Snee also class of 1971 told me an interesting story about Colonels Day that year.  (I have to say that Colonel's Day never made that big an impression on me.  It was just one of those schola brevis church parade days as far as I knew.)  Jerry had devoted himself to being the colonel of 71 and came achingly close being named the Regimental Executive Officer.  The tradition was that he would draw his saber to salute the new colonel and the rest of the Regiment would hand salute.  The Jesuit in charge of the ceremony told Jerry that there would be no saber drawing on the altar on his watch, so Bob had to settle for a hand salute from his XO.

Sorry for the extended intro.  Here is John Frank.
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I traveled through time recently…or as close to it as is possible in our day and age. My trip took me back to the late 1960s and early 1970s to an incredibly special place in my life, Xavier High School in New York City. The occasion for my trip was the 45th reunion of my Xavier class of 1971.

Peter, who was a year ahead of me and with whom I spent many days in the chess club trying to become the new Bobby Fischer, has been recounting his recollections of Xavier here already.

It’s fair to say that Xavier was a nexus for so many social and national crosscurrents sweeping America in the turbulent 1960s. It was a military school when the Vietnam War was ripping the country apart. To add to the tension, it stood on the edge of Greenwich Village, about as counter-culture a place as you could find at the time.

And in an era when suburban flight was rampant in big cities, it drew suburban students back into the city, offering more, in their parents eyes, than the massive suburban high school campuses that were springing up to serve their new communities.

Xavier was also a Jesuit school, which meant the social justice currents of the civil rights movement and the upheaval in the Catholic Church post-Vatican II were on full display.

A classmate mentioned at our reunion that it you tried to create a Xavier for a fictional story about the 1960s, people wouldn’t believe it could exist. But it did and does, albeit in a much different form today. And, by the way, I’ve tried to capture it in my new play, The Institute, which you can read more about on my theater’s website.

We discussed all of this and much more in the two nights of events that made up our reunion. And whatever our feelings about all those issues swirling around the school in those days, we all agreed it was a unique place that we loved.

People who were pro-military loved it. People who were anti-military loved it. We loved it because it let us be who we were, and allowed us to discover who we were. In fact, it demanded we get to know ourselves and not accept the stereotypes others would tag us with.

There were jocks at Xavier and nerds (we were all nerds really) and musicians and future doctors, engineers and others, but we really never felt there were the cliques you see so much about in almost every movie about high school.

I  contend that was because of the military uniforms we wore and the haircuts we were required to get.

We first judge people by how they look…so when everyone looks the same, you have to think a little harder, spend a little time getting to know people before you decide if they’re people you want to associate with or not.  Xavier gave us that time, and again encouraged us to get comfortable with people we might never had gotten close to otherwise.

As we exchanged stories about teachers who threw erasers at us or stuffed people who weren’t behaving into lockers or held them out windows by their ankles (actual events all, I saw the first two and the third is class legend), it struck me that life at Xavier was a bit like the Bible and its view of God.

Freshman and sophomore years were Old Testament God all the way…strict discipline, rote learning (we memorized everything), constant toughening. Junior and senior year were New Testament God as seen through a Jesuit lens…love God, love your neighbor. After that, you’re free to question any and every rule of the church and the world.

Was that the plan all along, or was that a reflection of the massive changes our country was going through? I’d like to think it was a Jesuit plan and I’m sure they’d be happy to take credit for it.

I felt this reunion included more looking back than past ones had. We held our first event of the weekend at the 69th Regiment Armory where we drilled every week, so that likely prompted a lot of the looking back that night.

But our age had a lot to do with it too, I’m sure. We’re in our 60s now, a good portion of us have retired or are looking ahead to retirement. And that leaves those of us who were trained to lead, to be innovative, to be creative, wondering…well, what do we do now?

Our colonel, Bob Meisner, led a ceremony Friday night to recognize the departed members of our class, about a tenth of us, which for me only reinforced that we are so much closer to the end of our journey than the beginning as we were when we were at Xavier.  Touring the building with a fresh-faced senior lieutenant colonel reinforced that. He can’t imagine all life has ahead for him in his next 45 years before he’s our age…just as he can’t imagine being our age!

Some of us talked about caring for very elderly parents, others about new work projects, even new products they planned to launch.  I talked about my theater, a project that grew out of me wanting to write plays and to not wait for other people to decide to produce them after I decided to end my 39-year journalism career because of heart-health issues that had required surgery in 2012.

But mostly we talked about, and relived the past…all the great plays and actors we had seen thanks to Mr. Moroney (who came to our Friday event) – Henry Fonda, Helen Hayes, Jimmy Stewart, a very young Al Pacino…all the adventures we had drinking, underage, at places like McSorley’s, Steak & Brew and the Hofbrau House in Yorkville where we’d sit in the back room and sing German songs…all the times we had rushed to windows on the 16th Street side to see the prostitutes who lived across the street (Chelsea was much different in those days). They would stand naked in their windows around first period every day our junior year.

We remembered Miss Salvati (whom had already been mentioned in Peter’s blog) and how she helped us when we needed help…and Mr. Donelan who was simply crazy…and many legendary teachers I somehow managed to never have, like Mr. Wohling, Mr. Pacquin, Mr. (later Fr.) Lux…and every time we mentioned a name, it was like a magic incantation making us young again in 1967.

Xavier set us on our way back then, we had come back to say thanks and we left, hopefully, infused with that magic of our youth when no challenge seemed too large because we were Sons of Xavier.

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Under age drinking - I'm shocked.

While at Xavier, I never fully appreciated the heritage of the 69th.  They were the First Regiment of Thomas Francis Meagher's Irish Brigade which played a large part in ending the pervasive prejudice against Irish Catholics, then the most despised white people in the United States. When I was at Gettysburg for the Sesquicentennial I ran into someone who was in a society dedicated to Irish Military History, which until the 20th Century mainly concerned itself with Irish men fighting for other countries.

One of my favorite song lines is from a song about another Irish Brigade that fought for France.
 - "And they, who survived, Fought and drank as of yore, But the land of their heart's hope. They never saw more,"

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John Frank after 35 years in journalism is now a playwright.  His upcoming work The Institute is based on his experience at Xavier High School.

Peter J Reilly after a similar stint in public accountant hopes to become a writer.  Go figure.

Gettysburg Day 2 - Worst Ground I Ever Seen

Originally published on forbes.com on July 4, 2013.

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The Valley of Death "Battlefield Experience" program on July 2, more than any other event, illustrates the downside of attending sesquicentennial events on the more or less exact time.  Oddly enough, some of the difficulties may have made the experience a bit more authentic.

The Lay of The Land

If you spend a little time at Gettysburg, you will find that it is relatively easy to orient yourself, when you are on the high ground.  You can start walking in a more or less southerly direction form the vicinity of the "high water mark" past numerous Union monuments of all sizes and descriptions including the cathedral- like Pennsylvania monument.  Looking roughly West, the larger Confederate monuments to Virginia and North Carolina are visible far across the field.  Eventually the paths jog West as you go over or around the Round Tops and you are eventually on West Confederate Avenue going roughly North on Seminary Ridge.  Stand by the Virginia or North Carolina monument and look across the upward sloping field divided by a fence and think about jogging across that field with lead raining on you from three directions, mostly from people behind that stone wall, but that is Day 3.

Valley of Death

On Day 2, much of the action was among the woods and rocks in the southern part of the field.  It is very easy, at least for me, to get totally disoriented down there.  CV and I managed to get to Devil's Den a bit before the Valley of Death program was starting.  This was the one event where numbers overwhelmed the Park Service.  Ranger Jim Flook divided us into two groups to take two different routes.  My new found friends from the Gettysburg Geek Group coached us to stick with Ranger Flook to go through Devil's Den.  The crowd of 500 or so climbed up through a narrow gap between the boulders that a Texas veteran of the battle had described as being as big as meeting houses. The fellow had also thought Little Round Top was very steep.  He was obviously somebody from very flat country with small buildings, but to be fair, we did not have to climb Little Round Top under fire from the 20th Maine and green-clad United States Sharpshooters, who must have been nearly invisible to soldiers used to fighting in the open.  The Sharpshooters added much to Confederate confusion on that day.

Ranger Flook gave us a good sense of the confusion and intense fighting in that part of the field.  He was hampered a bit by sound equipment that was not well scaled to the crowd.  This was compounded by one of the few exceptions I noted to the almost universal politeness of sesquicentennial participants of all descriptions.  Somebody was standing not very far, certainly not nearly far enough, from Ranger Flook, talking on a cell phone, until someone in the crowd chased him away. Ranger Flook explained to us the difficulty that historians have in pinpointing the exact sequence of events in this area of the battle, by quizzing the crowd on how well their modern digital watches were synchronized and trying to imagine what it would be like quizzing veterans years after the event.  The few of them that had watches had better things to do than look at them and witnessed things much more memorable than noting the time.

Next came the only logistical miscalculation that I noted through all the time I have been here.  In order to get to the trolley path that would bring us to the Wheatfield, we had to go over a stone wall.  It was a bit daunting for the elderly among us, including myself, and not at all a good experience for the wall, which was left in need of some repair.  As General Hood, who had wanted to go the right, noted it was not good ground around there.

The Devil To Pay

Sound system difficulties and CV's waning patience with battle narrative influenced us to desert the unit, but we more than made up for it by the fascinating people that we encountered.  On the trolley path we chatted a bit with the two women walking behind us. They had met at the bed and breakfast where they were staying.  It reminded me of a few of the opportunistic alliance I have made when visiting historic sites.  One of them agreed with CV that the problem with Doris Kearns Goodwin speech was that it was too much about Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Probably, another person who did not listen to Imus, as much as I did.

CV thought that by bailing from the barely audible Wheatfield talk, we would have an edge getting on the shuttle bus. I totally blew that plan, because I could not leave without visiting the Irish Brigade monument, which in my total disorientation, I could have had a hard time finding without help.  Fortunately General John Buford (Michael D. Smith) was happy to direct me.  There were quite a few Union generals wandering the battlefield playing havoc with synchronicity.  General Buford was only a few miles out of place.  They are interpreters, rather than re-enactors.  They belong to organizations such as the Confederation of Union Generals and make no pretense of being in command of the much more numerous re-enactors, enlisted men, who belong to other organizations.  The flock of generals on the battlefield on Day 2 were there more as visitors.  They will be going to work as interpreters during the weekend events.

I could not resist turning my request for directions into an interview that moved seamlessly between General Buford and Michael Smith.  I learned from General Buford that the really important trick to a saber charge is not starting it from too far away, which can result in winded horses just when the fighting starts.  Mr. Smith has never met Sam Elliot, but indicated that he drew a lot from Elliot's performance of Buford's low-key professionalism.

Mr. Smith speculated that if Buford had survived the war, he probably would have been promoted to Colonel in the Regular Army (Most of the regulars had higher war-time rank.  Custer, for example, was a major-general during the Civil War and a lieutenant colonel at Little Big Horn).  If Buford had assessed the post-war Army as favoring professionalism over politics, he might have stayed in.  Otherwise he would have retired to take up horse breeding in Kentucky.

The Wild Geese

Lingering near the Wheatfield led to another delightful encounter.  Paul Mullally, a retired urban planner from Dublin offered us the traditional tourist picture taking exchange at the iconic Wolfhound monument

There wasn't any snow.  One of these days, I will figure out how to rotate pictures and get them into my posts.

Mr. Mullally is a member of the Council of the Military History Society of Ireland.  Since 1600 or so, much of Irish military history is the history of Irish emigrants and exiles (wild geese) fighting in the armies of other countries, sometimes in their own units.  The longest serving was probably the one in France.  We had a rather free ranging conversation over many topics including my trip to Dublin where I noted that none of the public contact people were Irish.  Mr. Mullally told me that during the Celtic Tiger period, they had to recruit planners from South Africa.  There was an interesting interlude in which CV was quizzing Mr. Mullally about the Irish immigrant experience in America.  That was kind of odd, since that is my heritage, not his.

The Irish Brigade had a really bad day in the Wheatfield which changed hands several times.  Mr. Mullally and I hunted out some regimental markers, which General Buford had told me to be on the look-out for.

CV and I ate the rations we had carried as we were in line for the shuttle bus for our trip to Little Round Top.  CV thought we had done enough walking by then.  Little Round Top is my next post.

You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.

Gettysburg Day 1 - Through The Streets To Cemetery Hill

This was originally published on forbes.com on July 2, 2013.  In keeping with my "real time" schedule it is being rereleased on July 1 at 1:30 PM.  
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After following the footsteps of the Last March of The Iron Brigade, my covivant and I found ourselves on the opposite side of town from our horseless carriage.  We sat on the lawn of the Lutheran Seminary listening to a band in blue uniforms perform period music.  We were munching on the rations that we had brought along.  Mine was a ham sandwich.  Although, I really like CV's vegetarian cooking and have developed a real taste for seitan, I doubt I will ever fully convert, especially when it comes to sandwiches. We had noticed traffic conditions approaching gridlock during our "march", so rather than take the shuttle, we decided to walk across town to the Gettysburg National Cemetery.  Oddly, this was arguably another "real time" experience as we were again in the footsteps of federal soldiers exactly 150 years before, who were in a much more desperate race to get to the high ground south of the town.

Those "Rowdy" Reenactors

We stopped for coffee at a place called The Ragged Edge.  I picked up a copy of the Gettysburg Times, the front page stories were mainly about the New Birth of Freedom event, featuring Doris Kearns Goodwin, that CV and I had attended Sunday night. A brief story on page 3 caught my eye - "Arrest at re-enanctment".  It told the story of state police being called to the re-enactment site of the Blue Gray Alliance, Friday night, to deal with a disturbance.  A fellow from Georgia was intoxicated and going from tent to tent trying to start a fight.

You have to remember there were over ten thousand reenactors participating in the weekend's events.  These are fellows who have weapons -  obsolete, but quite deadly.  They are reenacting events about which emotions in some quarters still run rather high.  The only matter requiring police attention ends up being one belligerent drunk trying and apparently failing to start a fight.  That's amazing.  You'd have more trouble if you put ten thousand CPAs all in one place.

A Reenactor Like None Other

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like if you see someone wearing a T-shirt commemorating a particular unit, it is more than likely an Irish unit.  I've taken to greeting people wearing them with "Clear the Way" which is a translation of what the Irish Brigade was chanting as they went into battle at Antietam.  A fellow, wearing an odd looking kepi, that I tried it on turned out to be Father Stephen Duncan.  Father Duncan told me that he had been reenacting Father William Corby.  Father Corby had famously given absolution to the men of the Brigade before they went into action in the Wheatfield on July 2.

Father Corby would go on to become President of Notre Dame.  According to Father Duncan, veterans of the Irish Brigade presented the unit's colors to Father Corby and that is the origin of the Fighting Irish nickname.  Cursory research does not support that story, but I like it better than the other origin tales, so I will stick with it.

Father Duncan is a priest in the Syrian Orthodox Church.  In the last few months, my knowledge of this denomination has moved from zero to superficial as I was recently writing  about the role of Archbishop Samuel in the odd side journey that the Dead Sea Scrolls took to Central Massachusetts.

Final Stage

We stopped at the Irish Brigade Gift  Shop where I picked up a T-shirt just like Father Duncan's.  I will wear it in the Wheatfield this afternoon.  When we arrived at the Cemetery, there was another walking tour kicking off.  CV thought we had done enough walking.  We did stay there to listen to the introduction.  The ranger said that what happened on Cemetery Hill last night, 150 years ago, might have been the most significant event of the Civil War.  I don't know about that, but he may have had a case.  For the next two days the armies would face one another from two ridges with the Union on the higher one.

You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.

 Afterword:

I had my picture taken with the T-shirt by Father Corby's statue on Cemetery Ridge.

419 Reasons to Like Nigeria and Nigerians - Part 3- Cherish Your Diaspora

You'll have to go back into the previous posts if you want the connection that this has to taxes fully explained.  It is a tax court decision from 1952 that sent me down this path. This is the final post in this series, unless I decide to do more.  Earlier in the series I proposed that people start making lists of 419 reasons to like Nigeria and Nigerians.  

Why 419 ? Well if you don't know you're not going to find out in this post.  As I noted in my last post, I don't know that I have anything worthwhile to offer beyond the original idea, assuming for the sake of argument that the original idea was worthwhile.   Regardless, I observed that there are, probably among other reasons, two reasons that Americans form an affection for other lands and their peoples - neighbors and American history.  I discussed neighbors in the last post and this one is dedicated to American history.  

I should mention here that I have two intellectual passions.  Title 26 of the United States Code and the history of the United States from 1830 - 1870.  Since I am a professional in the first and an amateur in the latter, I don't hold myself to exacting standards of scholarly citation.  Besides this is blogging not peer reviewed publication.  Go check out the William and Mary Quarterly or something like that if that's what you want.

Nation of Immigrants - Not Exactly

The large influx of immigrants into the United States commenced around 1830 and continued at an increasing pace until the early 20th century.  It's a complicated story.  Here are some numbers if you want that.  There are plenty more resources if you poke around.  The immigrants of course changed American culture in many ways, but I don't think it is fair to say that they transformed it.  If you read Democracy in America you see that many of the elements of American culture and governance were fully formed by then.  The Declaration of Independence was almost as old then, as I am now.  We still number our presidents in the same sequence.   Although if we were going to drop one number 7 who is on the 20 dollar bill wouldn't be a bad choice.

Three Major Groups in the Formation

The nation that the immigrants started coming to in droves in the mid-nineteenth century had been formed by the encounter between three major groups.  The indigenous peoples of North America, the descendentsof European settlers, predominantly English speaking Protestants, many of whom could trace their ancestors in America back over a century and descendants of Africans taken in captivity to America, most of whom were held in bondage.  The immigrants, not being idiots, figured out which group they wanted to be part of right off but the culture they were joining up with had been shaped by all three groups such that even the descendants of the Europeans were not European anymore.  That's another complicated story too big for blogging

What in the World Does That Have to do with Nigeria ?

For that I have to divert a little.  Several years ago I visited Antietam with my daughter.  Antietam is the site of the deadliest day in American history September 17, 1862.  It is a very important day because Abraham Lincoln had decided that he would only issue the Emancipation Proclamation after a victory.  The proclamation, by itself, did not free anybody, but after it went in effect on January 1, 1863 it meant that the men in blue suits brought freedom wherever they went.  One of the monuments at Antietam which I just had to see with my daughter was dedicated to the Irish Brigade.  The Irish Brigade is another long story.  Suffice it to say they were probably mostly famine refugees commanded by Thomas Francis Meagher, who barely missed being executed for his participation in an abortive uprising in Ireland.  One of the things that I noted was an acknowledgement of their courage by the Republic Ireland.  The men were soldiers in the  service of the United States of America on the bloodiest day in the country's history.  At the dedication ceremony one of the speakers said:

 "They showed by their record that they brought with them a true endowment of riches. They added a glorious new chapter to the history of the Irish soldier."

That was the Irish Ambassador to the United States, Sean O'Huiginn. This is not an isolated incident.  Here is what Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland has to say:

At my inauguration I spoke of the seventy million people worldwide who can claim Irish descent. I also committed my Presidency to cherishing them - even though at the time I was thinking of doing so in a purely symbolic way. Nevertheless the simple emblem of a light in the window, for me, and I hope for them, signifies the inextinguishable nature of our love and remembrance on this island those who leave it behind.

Over 100 years since the last of my immigrant ancestors came to America and the president of Ireland has the light on for me.  To put the seventy million in context, the current population of Ireland is just over six million roughly 75% in the Republic and the balance in Northern Ireland, part of the U.K.   Ireland had a population of about eight million in 1840.  From1845 to 1852, Ireland lost two million people, half to starvation and disease and half to emigration.  High rates of emigration afterwards prevented Ireland from ever recovering to its pre-Famine population.

My Favorite Civil War Monument

My favorite Civil War monument is not the one to the Irish Brigade at Antietam or the even more impressive one at Gettysburg.  It is in Boston.  It is called the Shaw monument in honor of Robert Gould Shaw colonel of the 54th Massachusetts.  As the inscription shows the monument is really in honor of the whole regiment. I first saw it when I was eighteen and coming at it from behind so I read the inscription before I saw the Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture:

THE WHITE OFFICERS
TAKING LIFE AND HONOR IN THEIR HANDS CAST IN THEIR LOT
WITH MEN OF DESPISED RACE UNPROVED IN WAR AND
RISKED DEATH AS INCITERS OF SERVILE INSURRECTION
IF TAKEN PRISONERS BESIDES ENCOUNTERING ALL THE
COMMON PERILS OF CAMP MARCH AND BATTLE.

THE BLACK RANK AND FILE
VOLUNTEERED WHEN DISASTER CLOUDED THE UNION CAUSE
SERVED WITHOUT PAY FOR EIGHTEEN MONTHS TILL GIVEN
THAT OF WHITE TROOPS FACED THREATENED ENSLAVE-
MENT IF CAPTURED WERE BRAVE IN ACTION PATIENT
UNDER HEAVY AND DANGEROUS LABORS AND CHEERFUL
AMONG HARDSHIPS AND PRIVATIONS.

TOGETHER
THEY GAVE TO THE NATION AND THE WORLD UNDYING PROOF
THAT AMERICANS OF AFRICAN DESCENT POSSESS THE
PRIDE COURAGE AND DEVOTION OF THE PATRIOT SOLDIER.
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THOUSAND SUCH AMERICANS
ENLISTED UNDER THE UNION FLAG IN
MDCCCLXIII MDCCCLXV.

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

I KNOW NOT MR. COMMANDER WHERE IN ALL HUMAN HISTORY
TO ANY GIVEN THOUSAND MEN IN ARMS THERE HAS
BEEN COMMITTED A WORK AT ONCE SO PROUD SO PRECIOUS
SO FULL OF HOPE AND GLORY AS THE WORK COMMITTED
TO YOU.

JOHN A. ANDREW, GOVERNOR

The math isn't all that hard to do.  About 30% of the persons taken in captivity from Africa were from Nigeria.  That means 70% weren't.   The African people in America were pretty intermingled so you could infer that after a generation about 51% would be partially of Nigerian descent (1- (.7 x .7)).  Run that out 8 generations and you are well into the nineties.  So let's be conservative and say that 150,000 of the Americans of African descent who wore blue suits in the mid eighteen sixties were partially of Nigerian descent.   Now since the Americans of African descent were one of the three primary groups that created the United States, I could start naming names of other heroes, but I only promised you 419 and I'm already at 150,000 and I'm just a tax blogger and have other things I need to be writing about.

Some things I have read in other places lead me to believe I may have stepped into another controversy in which I don't really belong, so I should clarify that this is something of a personal idiosyncratic viewpoint t.   The men of the 54th Mass and the less well known but earlier formed First South Carolina Volunteers, who as mostly Gullah speakers from isolated areas were more distinctively African than their cousins recruited in the North, are American heroes.  They did not think of themselves as Nigerian and their descendants probably don't either.  And maybe Nigerians don't think of them as Nigerian.  But they are American heroes, which makes them my heroes.  And they are of Nigerian descent, so they make me like Nigeria.  As I said in a previous post, I am very ignorant about Nigeria.  Maybe Goodluck Jonathan keeps a light on for them in his house, but if he doesn't it might not be such a bad idea.  He could give Mary Robinson a call.

For more on the topic of the participation Americans of African descent in the Civil War check out the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum.

Doing The Civil War Sesquicentennial In Real Time

I can't quite say for certain what moved me to visit Antietam on September 17, 2012.  It was the first time in over thirty years that I took off from work on a big due date.  (September 15 is when extended corporate tax returns are due).  Even after 9/11, September 17, 1862 remains the deadliest day in American history.  There is a passage in Strangers In The Land by John Higham which has always haunted me.  

Faugh a Ballagh! The Gaelic cry rang out through the dense fog and gunsmoke as a wave of Union troops surged up the heights behind ruined Fredericksbur.  In their midst floated a green flag bearing the golden harp of Ireland.  For fifteen minutes Confederate cannon and muskets poured down volley after volley from impregnable positions a few paces away.  At the end of the carnage two thirds of General Thomas Meagher's Irish Brigade were left crumpled on the field.

That was December 13, 1862, but the Brigade had a similar encounter as it charged Bloody Lane in Antietam on September 17, 1862.

The Battle of Antietam was the arguable victory that Abraham Lincoln needed to issue the preliminary emancipation proclamation.

At any rate I felt drawn to be at Antietam on the anniversary.  The only planning I did was to book a room in the general vicinity.  I made it to the National Park Center early Sunday afternoon on the 16th.  As I suspected there was a lot going on.  There had been a major reenactment event near the Park (The Park Service sharply limits the number of reenactors that can tromp around the Park with black powder weapons).

The thing that really surprised me though was an encounter that I had that night as I was waiting to hear a talk by James McPherson.  A couple of guys were sharing pictures they had taken a day or two before at a critical spot not too distant.  It turned out that the fellows remembered one another from Bull Run.  They were part of a small group of people that is drawn to be at the precise 150th anniversary of key events. One of them was going on that he was not going to be in the Cornfield the next day, as the real opening shot was at another point. He said they called themselves real timers.

I was in the Cornfield the next morning where I met another real timer, but you will have to wait until September 17 to read about that, since I will be putting my real time experiences up either one or two years after I had them.  You can go hunting on forbes.com if you are impatient.

My covivant has had enough of the Civil War for her lifetime and nothing is calling me in 2014.  I do intend to be at Appomatox next April and hopefully you will read about it here.  I have already posted about Chancellorsville, so you can keep an eye out for Gettysburg when the time comes.