Much of David W. Blight\u2019s work, \u201cFor Something beyond the Battlefield\u201d: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War, discusses Douglass\u2019 pledge to \u201cnever forget\u201d and his effort to forge memory into action. Blight details Douglass\u2019 five sources for his meaning behind the Civil War: \u201chis belief that the war had been an ideological struggle and not merely the test of a generation\u2019s loyalty and valor; his sense of refurbished nationalism made possible by emancipation, Union victory, and Radical Reconstruction; his confrontation with the resurgent racism and Lost Cause mythology of the postwar period; his critique of America\u2019s peculiar dilemma of historical amnesia, and his personal psychological stake in preserving an Afro-American and abolitionist memory of the war.\u201d Having done some reading on the Civil War and Frederick Douglass previously, I think Blight does a nice job outlining much of Douglass\u2019 arguments and personal stances on the post-war memory, as well as, the difference in opinions by those who do not side with the abolitionist and teleological memory of the war. Furthermore, one thing that caught my eye and I believe established Blight\u2019s work as credible and thorough was the amount of sources he used throughout the argument. He drew upon many different speeches and quotations from Douglass and sprinkled them well in his work. Along with detailing Douglass\u2019 five sources and an overview of his memory of the war, he did a nice job supplementing that with important opinions of others during that period and historically famous arguments that agreed and also went against Douglass\u2019 perspective of the Civil War. Overall, I thought this was good work and gave us some real good first hand opinions of the nineteenth century\u2019s most prominent Afro-American intellectual and others who had an influence on post-war ideals.<\/p>\n
With that being said, however, I want to focus on a point that Blight just barely mentioned but stopped me from reading and made me think about a little bit. This challenge to Douglass\u2019 meaning of memory is interesting and probably raises some intriguing questions about those in this time period who had substantial influence and power but had no stake in the actual fighting that was occurring. Blight explains how Douglass\u2019 action was more of an inner struggle than a physical test claiming, \u201cPerhaps his remoteness from the carnage enabled him to sustain an ideological conception of the war throughout his life.\u201d A sentence that was masked but much of the bulk of this work was the claim that stuck out most in my eyes. I believe he is right, what if Douglass\u2019 opinion is mainly shaped from an outsiders perspective? Would his argument be more credible or influential if he fought in the war and actually experienced the memory he is trying to preserve? Would his memory of the Civil War be different if he served behind the lines? \u00a0I think these all are valid questions as we consider Douglass\u2019 memory as somewhat of an outsider\u2019s viewpoint. As Holmes states, \u201cthe true hero\u2014the deepest memory\u2014of the Civil War was the soldier on either side, thoughtless of ideology, which faced the \u2018experience of battle\u2026\u201d I think this is an interesting point and certainly deserves some attention regardless of personal stance.<\/p>\n
I think it is important to remember those that were transformed by personal experience during the Civil War. As an intellectual, Douglass\u2019 viewpoint cannot comprehend the soldier\u2019s war experience and how those men remember the war. It is a question for thought as Douglass\u2019 memory could be argued to be a \u201cquest to save the freedom of his people and the meaning of his own life.\u201d Like some of us mentioned in our posts last week (Mike and others), the feminist movement and Douglass\u2019 argument can be seen similarly as sometimes they did not reach to a wider audience at the time and their voice wasn\u2019t heard as much due to their relatively narrow views and opinions (ex. Success of the WCTU).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much of David W. Blight\u2019s work, \u201cFor Something beyond the Battlefield\u201d: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War, discusses Douglass\u2019 pledge to \u201cnever forget\u201d and his effort to forge memory into action. Blight details Douglass\u2019 five sources for his meaning behind the Civil War: \u201chis belief that the war had … <\/p>\n