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Lisa Brady’s work gives “life” to the most often thought of inanimate world of the physical environment. After reading her work, I think Brady suggests that a third army existed during the Civil War–the Confederate Army, the Union Army, and the Nature Army. In her post from last week, Chelsea Creta stated, “Myth and history are not mutually exclusive.” In reference to this weeks reading, humans and the physical environment are not mutually exclusive. The American Civil War was a turning point in which many Americans came to this conclusion.
Army officials and soldiers on both sides had to maneuver the land. They had to learn how to use it to their advantage, but they also had to combat it in order to carry out a plan of attack. Northern soldiers who fought in the South encountered terrain and soil unlike what they were accustomed to in the North. Southerns (soldiers and civilians) had to deal with the fact that both sides depleted their resources and that Southern lands experienced the brunt of attack during the war. All soldiers had to deal with disease and weather–both products of the physical environment. The environment had to deal with the soldiers and their destruction of the land.
In the end, while the North technically won the war, the Nature Army is the real winner. As a result of four years of battle, Americans broadened their ideas about nature and the manner in which the national government has the ability to protect the physical environment. Yes, Brady does not attempt to give nature a consciousness or intent, but it does have agency–human thought and action are determined by nature’s role. Nature has the ability to infiltrate individuals’ lives. Brady tells of those who used nature metaphors to explain their conditions and emotions. Others wrote detailed descriptions of their surrounding environment. Thus, humans experienced a closer connection to nature than ever before. Brady states, “That nature retained its beauty in the face of an ugly war seemed to bring solace to some” (135). Of course high-thinkers like poets and philosophers thought of these connections, but this was a defining moment for the everyday American and nature.
Class discussions continually lead back to an important question, “Who are the actors?” In the case of Lisa Brady’s work and the American Civil War, there are three actors, three armies, not two. Thus, nature is not some static force that works against us but rather us and nature work in tandem (or at least that is how it should be).