It was but a single item among the scores of pieces on loan from dozens of museums and private collections that, brought together inside Morristown's stately Macculloch Hall, formed what was probably the finest exhibit ever assembled in regards to New Jersey soldiers in the Civil War.
Named "Gone for a Soldier – Jerseymen in the Civil War," the display featured everything from swords and firearms to devil-adorned playing cards and a blood-soaked prayer book.
Small placards next to each piece strove to tell the story behind the piece and bring the war home on a personal level, and no attempt was made to hide that the man who wore this specific jacket or carried that stag-handled bowie drew his last breath just inches from Virginia's green grass or mud-soaked trenches.
One piece in particular drew my eye: a gorgeous .58 caliber Springfield Model 1861 rifle that, sitting behind the thick glass of a display case, featured a muzzle that was once the pinnacle of man's innovative killing power, now silenced for the ages.
This, however, was more than just another old gun. Into its dark wooden stock, the iron cross-like emblem of the Army of the Potomac's Sixth Corps was carved, and down the side of the barrel, its owners name — New Jersey's own Corporal James Taylor of Co. B of the 14th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry – was engraved (no doubt a product of the hours upon hours of intense boredom that bookended the moments of terror that formed the soldier's life).
But those simple markings lent a human touch to the murderous tool and spurred the viewer to the sobering realization that, yes, this gun belonged to a man, a man not unlike any of us, who used it to end lives in some of history's most savage battles.
Later that day, at a Masonic lodge just a few blocks from Maccullough Hall, the museum hosted a talk by world-famous historian James McPherson, who may be the finest Civil War scholar that the nation has ever produced.
McPherson, who looks decades younger than his 76 years, was the picture of class in both speech and manner, and his remarkable talk, which outlined the numerous breakdowns in the peace negotiations between North and South, kept his audience of armchair historians intrigued.
The peace process, after all, is something that is oft-overlooked in the thousands of books written about the war, and maybe for good reason; the two sides were so impossibly far from any common ideal of what "peace" could even look like that some might consider it wholly irrelevant.
That's not to say that during the war there weren't plenty of people on both sides actively lobbying for an armistice, especially during the later years when bullet-swept battlefields produced mammoth casualty lists.
McPherson said that the opening of peace negotiations, Northern "Peace Democrats" claimed, would be the first steps towards the "brotherly reunion of North and South," and although "it might take a long time," it would be have to be done one step at a time.
But as his talk continued, and he discussed the stubborn reluctance on the part of both sides to settle for anything less than what history might consider a total victory, I began to see his words mold themselves into the current political landscape.
With each passing election, and especially in the light of the recent Supreme Court decisions on healthcare, immigration, and the role of the federal government in the life of its citizens and its states, it becomes abundantly clear that the Civil War never really ended.
The way we fight it may have changed, and although our politicians today skip the apocalyptic rhetoric their nineteenth century forebears used to such great effect, the arguments are essentially the same.
But now, instead of grabbing a rifle, we grab the keyboard. Instead of taking to the field, we take to Facebook and Twitter, venting our frustrations and backing up our assertions with Wikipedia crash courses on constitutional law and quotes from men long since dead.
And I cannot help but wonder where our "brotherly reunion" between North and South, liberal and conservative, went, and if at the end of the great crucible, Corporal Taylor and his compatriots thought that the issues that had ignited the "mighty scourge of war" had finally, and forever, been settled, and that America might one day heal the conflagration's crimson wounds.
I wonder how shocked he would be to see that even 150 years later the voting map regularly reflects the old boundaries of the old Confederacy, or to read our internet postings and see that we are every bit as divided today as we were on the day that he carved that cross into the stock of his rifle.
I wonder if he would think his sacrifice, their sacrifice, was all worth it.
Alas, I cannot ask him. And all we have left of him, of those troops, of that Grand Army of the Republic that freed the slaves and ended the insurrection, is that cold, murderous accoutrement that serves as a constant reminder of a country that once tore itself apart, only to rebuild stronger in some places… but just as vulnerable in others.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
For more information on the Macculloch Hall summer programs, go to maccullochhall.org.
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/162165635_War_s_wounds_remain_unhealed.html?page=all
Named "Gone for a Soldier – Jerseymen in the Civil War," the display featured everything from swords and firearms to devil-adorned playing cards and a blood-soaked prayer book.
Small placards next to each piece strove to tell the story behind the piece and bring the war home on a personal level, and no attempt was made to hide that the man who wore this specific jacket or carried that stag-handled bowie drew his last breath just inches from Virginia's green grass or mud-soaked trenches.
One piece in particular drew my eye: a gorgeous .58 caliber Springfield Model 1861 rifle that, sitting behind the thick glass of a display case, featured a muzzle that was once the pinnacle of man's innovative killing power, now silenced for the ages.
This, however, was more than just another old gun. Into its dark wooden stock, the iron cross-like emblem of the Army of the Potomac's Sixth Corps was carved, and down the side of the barrel, its owners name — New Jersey's own Corporal James Taylor of Co. B of the 14th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry – was engraved (no doubt a product of the hours upon hours of intense boredom that bookended the moments of terror that formed the soldier's life).
But those simple markings lent a human touch to the murderous tool and spurred the viewer to the sobering realization that, yes, this gun belonged to a man, a man not unlike any of us, who used it to end lives in some of history's most savage battles.
Later that day, at a Masonic lodge just a few blocks from Maccullough Hall, the museum hosted a talk by world-famous historian James McPherson, who may be the finest Civil War scholar that the nation has ever produced.
McPherson, who looks decades younger than his 76 years, was the picture of class in both speech and manner, and his remarkable talk, which outlined the numerous breakdowns in the peace negotiations between North and South, kept his audience of armchair historians intrigued.
The peace process, after all, is something that is oft-overlooked in the thousands of books written about the war, and maybe for good reason; the two sides were so impossibly far from any common ideal of what "peace" could even look like that some might consider it wholly irrelevant.
That's not to say that during the war there weren't plenty of people on both sides actively lobbying for an armistice, especially during the later years when bullet-swept battlefields produced mammoth casualty lists.
McPherson said that the opening of peace negotiations, Northern "Peace Democrats" claimed, would be the first steps towards the "brotherly reunion of North and South," and although "it might take a long time," it would be have to be done one step at a time.
But as his talk continued, and he discussed the stubborn reluctance on the part of both sides to settle for anything less than what history might consider a total victory, I began to see his words mold themselves into the current political landscape.
With each passing election, and especially in the light of the recent Supreme Court decisions on healthcare, immigration, and the role of the federal government in the life of its citizens and its states, it becomes abundantly clear that the Civil War never really ended.
The way we fight it may have changed, and although our politicians today skip the apocalyptic rhetoric their nineteenth century forebears used to such great effect, the arguments are essentially the same.
But now, instead of grabbing a rifle, we grab the keyboard. Instead of taking to the field, we take to Facebook and Twitter, venting our frustrations and backing up our assertions with Wikipedia crash courses on constitutional law and quotes from men long since dead.
And I cannot help but wonder where our "brotherly reunion" between North and South, liberal and conservative, went, and if at the end of the great crucible, Corporal Taylor and his compatriots thought that the issues that had ignited the "mighty scourge of war" had finally, and forever, been settled, and that America might one day heal the conflagration's crimson wounds.
I wonder how shocked he would be to see that even 150 years later the voting map regularly reflects the old boundaries of the old Confederacy, or to read our internet postings and see that we are every bit as divided today as we were on the day that he carved that cross into the stock of his rifle.
I wonder if he would think his sacrifice, their sacrifice, was all worth it.
Alas, I cannot ask him. And all we have left of him, of those troops, of that Grand Army of the Republic that freed the slaves and ended the insurrection, is that cold, murderous accoutrement that serves as a constant reminder of a country that once tore itself apart, only to rebuild stronger in some places… but just as vulnerable in others.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
For more information on the Macculloch Hall summer programs, go to maccullochhall.org.
http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/162165635_War_s_wounds_remain_unhealed.html?page=all
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