Memorial Hall

[matthew mckeon]

The family and I went to Cambridge Mass. last night to see a show at the Sandler Theater, part of a large late Victorian gothic building called Memorial Hall, part of Harvard University. The lobby walls were lined with all the Harvard graduates who were killed in the Civil War. The names are carved in order of graduation in plain stone tablets, each school in the University having a section. I noticed Edward Revere(class of '47, Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862) and Paul Revere(class of '52, Gettysburg, July 3, 1863), probably the patriot's grandson. Also of course Robert Gould Shaw(class of '60 Fort Wagner).

I was reminded of Hemingway writing that while words like patriotism, sacrifice and glory had lost their meaning in the Great War, the numbers of regiments, certain dates and the names of villages retained their power.