Sunday, December 26, 2010

Hooked on Local History

In school I had no interest in history, and it wasn’t until I read Don't Know Much About History  by Ken Davis that history came alive. With the use of essays, letters and period news accounts, Davis made history interesting.

A trip to the battle fields of Gettysburg, PA ignited  my daughter’s interest in the civil war and sent us on many outings to the civil war sights in Tennessee and Alabama.  Her interest in joining the Daughters of the American Revolution prompted me to begin researching family history to find ancestral ties to the Civil and Revolutionary wars. Among others, I found a father who volunteered for the Confederate Army and his son who was conscripted into the Union Army.  Fate has deposited me in Charleston where on December 20th, 2010 held the South Carolina Secession Gala to celebrate the 150th   anniversary of the succession South Carolina from the Union.

I am enjoying a series of articles the Post and Courier is running to commemorating war’s anniversary. Often I imagine the ghost of the past as I wander Charleston, visit historic homes and plantations. A sadness visits me as I think of the wrongs visited upon the humans that were sold like so many cattle, and over the war that took so many lives.

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