Independence Day, and Remembering the Heroes of the Past

If you are anything like the typical American, you will spend tomorrow out in the sun, preferably near the closest body of water, clad in some combination of red, white, and blue. At least two of your meals will consist of hamburgers and hotdogs (and maybe a good domestic beer), and you will conclude the day by watching a fireworks display, all in honor of the 236^th anniversary of our Founding Fathers’ declaration of independence for these United States.

We are quick to recognize the bravery and fortitude of those men who established our nation, and rightfully so, but amid the parades and pyrotechnics we often forget an equally important event which shaped the narrative of the United States. On this date in 1863, two American armies clashed outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the third consecutive day of hostilities. Those three days marked the bloodiest single battle in American history, resulting in 50,000 casualties between the two forces, including 8,000 dead. Each of those casualties was sustained by an American and inflicted by an American. They were all men who went to war to fight for their ideology on both sides, and it is not difficult to imagine that many of them heard the exhortations of our Founding Fathers ringing in their ears as they took up arms to defend their notions of liberty.

Gettysburg was the strategic turning point of the eastern theater of the American Civil War and is considered by many to be the high-water mark of Confederate efforts to gain independence from the Union. The aftermath of that bloody encounter would ultimately touch the life of every American, U.S. or Confederate, black or white, freed or enslaved. It would stem the tide of the most devastating conflict our country has ever seen, one which claimed the lives of more than 620,000 soldiers. Of that number, 260,000 men died for liberty from the Union, and 360,000 others gave their lives to preserve the liberties established through Union.

In 2012, one hundred and forty-nine years after the guns fell silent on Cemetery Ridge and rain washed the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg, we would do well to remember the lesson of the men who laid down their lives there. It is a lesson that those survivors of the war knew too well. Many returned home to lands ravaged by combat and hunger, where nearly a quarter of a generation of young men had been annihilated. They witnessed firsthand the horrific consequences of partisanship, and they hoped that those consequences would leave an indelible mark on our nation, so that her people might never forget the dire repercussions of division.

And yet today, the mark left by the Civil War seems to have faded from memory as partisanship remains a familiar aspect of the American identity. From divisive debates on the state of our government’s sovereign debt to backlash against tax cuts and decisions on health care legislation, we the people appear to have forgotten that a house divided cannot stand.

Amid times of political strife and tension between socioeconomic groups, we Americans can gain from remembering the sobering horror that those soldiers faced on the field of battle in 1863. They drank the bitterest dregs of disunion, and by their bloodshed they reaffirmed that we are, and forever shall be, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So as you eat your hamburger and drink your cold domestic lager, listen carefully to the roar of the fireworks, and perhaps you might hear the rumble of artillery fire rolling across the fields of Gettysburg, and below it the exhortations of our Founding Fathers ringing in your ears.