Stories & Essays: At War with Ourselves

(see the written and multimedia piece in The Virginian-Pilot)

The Civil War and its ghosts have never disappeared from the southern landscape. They remain especially visible in Virginia, where the Confederates located their capital, where the fall of slavery began in Hampton and where more major battles were fought than in any other state.

During the first of a four year commemoration, I traveled across Virginia to document how the Civil War still resonates today. There is no doubt that education is a motivation for some, but it equally becomes about nostalgia, commercialization, politics and a desire to be something else.

The uncomfortable sin of slavery left a real need for Southerners to change their story. And our nation's narrative keeps evolving. One hundred and fifty years later, we continue to define the Civil War as it continues to define us.

A group of young Confederate soldiers marches into the woods to drill during Civil War Children's Camp at Endview Plantation in Newport News, Va.
   
Growing up in Culpeper, Howard Lambert said, he never heard of black soldiers and their role in the Union’s victory. Lambert started re-enacting in the late 1980s when makers of the movie “Glory” were looking for extras. Still active as a re-enactor, he continues to wear the uniform he wore in the film.
   
A diorama at the Pamplin Historical Park shows a field hospital with injured soldiers covering the lawn. The park is in Petersburg.
     
  
A re-enactor has a moment alone during the 150th commemoration of First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) in Manassas, Va.
   
Holding flags, Dave Redden, left, and Frederick Bird wait for the rest of their group to cross the Potomac River on foot one Saturday in August. The Potomac, rocky and at parts waist-deep, forms the border between Virginia and Maryland. For 13 years, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have commemorated the Army of Northern Virginia’s 1862 crossing into Maryland.
   
A young boy wanders up to a dancer as the Victorian Dance Society invite the public to join a demonstration during Civil War Day at the Historic Blenheim Estate in Fairfax, Va. The 150th anniversary of the Civil War has brought discussions back to the forefront. Though many people in the South still deny that slavery was cause of the Civil War, historians now largely agree. "This history is very, very central to the black experience," said historian Adam Goodheart, "yet blacks have been told that it doesn't belong to them."
     
  
Children of the Confederacy Audrey Joyner, 16, and her twin sister, Jordan, right, wait for the dance to start during the 75th annual Virginia Division convention held in Williamsburg last June. The organization is for children, from birth to age 18, who are descendants of Confederate soldiers. "I am related to these great men who fought in the War Between the States," Audrey wrote, "and I have to teach the truths about the war and to behave in a manner that will reflect honor on my noble and patriotic ancestors."
   
Statues for sale outside The Rebel One gift store in Appomattox, Va., a few miles away from where General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate army.
  
At center of photo, Odessa Taylor films a re-enactment while watching, with her daughter Tabria, 8, mother Maggie and aunt Ora Walker, the Contraband of War Sesquicentennial Celebration at Fort Monroe in Hampton. One hundred and fifty years earlier, three escaped slaves crossed over to then Fortress Monroe seeking Union protection; they were declared contraband and thus freed. One of the few Hampton residents on hand for the May event, Taylor said she wanted to bring her daughter “so she’ll know her history.”
     
  
The Rainbow puppeteers work behind the curtain during a performance of Footprints in History. The children's puppet show follows the history of Hampton including the arrival of slaves and the later freeing and educating of African-Americans in the area.
   
People take pictures after a ceremony in honor of Jefferson Davis's birthday at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
   
Harry Lillie operates the Lee Grant Civil War Gift Shop & Museum out of a roadside motel in Appomattox, Va. He was raised in New Jersey and had always enjoyed history, but didn't become interested in the Civil War until moving to Appomattox. "I think it's one of the more fascinating times in our history."
     
  
Jack Masters (center) breaks with his fellow Union infantrymen during a reenactment of the First Battle of Bull Run at the Endview Plantation's Civil War Children's Camp in Newport News, Va.
   
United Daughter of the Confederacy Mary-Margaret Swofford waits to present the Texas state flag during the UDC's annual Massing of the Flags ceremony in Richmond. The UDC, and its younger off-shoot, the Children of the Confederacy, is a legacy organization whose outlined objectives are memorial, eduction, patriotic, historical and benevolent. Member Barbara Joyner said she other Daughters struggle to get their message across that the UDC "hasn't got a daggone thing to do with racism."
   
Edward Willis of Richmond brushes off a wreath placed in honor of Jefferson Davis’ 203rd birthday in June at Hollywood Cemetery in the former Confederate capital.
     
  
Outside the Ellwood Manor, a single stone marks the spot where Stonewall Jackson's amputated left arm is buried near Spotsylvania, Va. In 1863, the Confederate general was shot by friendly fire and died a few days later.
   
Union soldiers march across the field during one of the Civil War Children's Camp historical battles. Campers are allowed to choose between the Union or Confederate side when they sign up.
   
Figurines for sale in Manassas, Va.
     
  
People prepare to dedicate wreaths in honor of Jefferson Davis' birthday at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va.
   
A carriage tour passes by a stone in downtown Fredericksburg, Va. The plaque in front of it states, “Principal Auction Site … for Slaves and Property.” For years, residents denied the rock was anything more than a mounting step for ladies arriving by carriage to the adjacent hotel. One night in 2005, vandals took a hammer to it. Local historians now predominantly agree and refer to it as the town's slave auction block.
  
A woman watches as smoke dissipates from a cannon fire in Richmond, Va.
     
  
Behind the curtain, James Cooper, left, of Norfolk reaches to hit a sound cue during the Rainbow Puppet Productions’ Footprints in History show at a library in South Hill. At right is Michael Singleton.
   
Re-enactor Scott Campbell shaves while camping out for the 150th commemoration of First Battle of Manassas. The re-enactment of the war's first major battle involved over eight thousand re-enactors and seventeen thousand spectators. Just fifty years prior, the centennial event devolved into a protest of the then-beginning civil rights movement. It was so disastrous that it led to federal regulation and a book on the ordeal which the organizers of the 2011 event studied.
  
Isaiah Williams, 5, looks at the exhibits at White Oak Civil War Museum, a privately owned museum in Stafford.
     
  
Re-enactors walk through the Historic Blenheim Estate during Civil War Day at in Fairfax, Va. The house was once occupied by Union soldiers who graffitied the walls. Historians are working to uncover their drawings and signatures.
  
Bumper stickers for sale in a gift shop in Appomattox, Va.
   
The Winfree cottage, home to a freed slave, was saved from demolition and temporarily moved next to the archeological site of the infamous Lumpkin's Slave Jail where continued plans for a historical Slave Trail are still underway in Richmond, Va.
     
  
Ralph Aitkin, a living-historian playing the part of an undertaker, waits for a nearby surgery demonstration to end outside the White Oak Civil War Museum in Stafford. Besides portraying soldiers, many re-enactors impersonate civilians to show the public other aspects of daily life.