Spinning History

by Kim Van Sickler

History is written by...people. People with their own agendas, biases, opinions, and artistic flairs. Over time, events and people are romanticized or vilified. Even though the evidence might point to a very different reality. Frankly, it's fascinating to me how we've come to accept certain historical stories as facts. And since I was just in Gettysburg, here are some of my favorites from that era.

John Brown. He's known as a devout abolitionist, and credited with triggering the Civil War that ended slavery. As an elementary school student I was taught that he was a hero, but there is certainly another side to that story. Like why did he take it upon himself and his band of sons to travel to the homes of pro-slavery advocates in Franklin County, KS, order them outside, interrogate them, and assasinate them? Pre-Harper's Ferry, John Brown had dropped out of his Congregational ministry studies and tried and discarded careers as a tanner, wool merchant, land surveyor, and farmer. He was married twice, father to 20 children, and directly influenced by his father, a staunch abolitionist. Some could and would say he was a shiftless loser. Post-Harper's Ferry, he was a martyr for racial equality.

Tragic Prelude by John Steuart Curry

Secretary of State William H. Seward. A fervent abolitionist, he was another polarizing figure. He wanted to be president, but was passed over for the Republican nomination in favor of the less radical Lincoln. Lincoln made him his Secretary of State and insisted he keep the position even when he wanted to resign right before Lincoln's inauguration. The Academy Award-nominated film Lincoln portrays Seward as the politician who is largely responsible for lining up the votes for the passage of the 13th Amendment. Seward scholars say that's accurate. Not what we were taught in school. In school it was all Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. I never even heard that the assassination of Lincoln was a coordinated effort with simultaneous attacks on Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Seward was in bed recovering from broken ribs and a broken jaw from a carriage accident when his would-be killer jumped on top of him with his dagger and slashed up his face and neck. Yet he lived. Wow. This guy needs his own movie.

In the movie Lincoln, Seward takes it upon himself to engage in the backroom dealing necessary to get the 13th Amendment passed.

Pickett's Charge. The tide was turning in the three-day Battle of Gettysburg and Cemetery Ridge was still barely under Union control. General Robert E. Lee couldn't bare to leave it that way and decided to stop fighting the flanks and go for the middle. He ordered General Longstreet to take the center of Cemetery Ridge, so Longstreet in turn assigned three of his divisions to do the job. In the 1993 movie Gettysburg, Longstreet agonizes over this bold directive, fearing it would fail, and by golly he was right. For 3/4 of a mile, Maj. General George Pickett's division led the march across open fields towards the hunkered in Union Army. A move that historians have disagreed about ever since. Was Lee's order a brave attempt to win a close battle, or a grandiose gesture that ensured the Confederates' defeat?

Confederates walking straight into cannon and rifle fire in Gettysburg (Courtesy of the movie Gettysburg.)  

What's one of your favorite historical dramas?