re: #29 Barbarian at the Gate

I saw on PBS once (I think it was the Burns Civil War series) newsreel footage of Civil War vets at reunions and on parades from the 1930’s. One was the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1938 where Franklin D. Roosevelt presided. Well the handful of Confederate veterans from Pickett’s Charge once more “attacked ” Seminary Ridge to be greatd with handshakes by their former foes. It was very moving.

I have always been fascinated with how much history one person’s lifetime can cover. When I was a child in the 1950s, there were people still alive who could remember the Civil War. I especially remember “Mrs. R” a very elderly neighbor of ours in Colorado Springs who had been born Washington DC in 1859 and was there throughout the Civil War. She could remember the sounds of gunfire, and the marching troops, and she had seen Abe Lincoln in person at his second inauguration. She was a very little girl at the time but that kind of memory never fades. She was 99 when she passed on in 1958. She was a very kindly old lady and loved children.
It still sends chills down my spine to realize that I have looked into the very eyes that once beheld the great Lincoln himself.