I wonder

Rebelsoul

Corporal
Joined
Jul 14, 2017
Location
Alabamian living in Montana
I wonder if the men on both sides ever thought about how much they would be talked about 100-150 + years in the future ? Their courage, sacrifices and dedication to their causes, or if they thought they would be forgotten and swept into the dustbin of history. I wonder if they ever thought about the 20th-21 first century while they sat around the lonely campfires at night and talked about it ? What do you think ?
 
I believe the only future they thought about was surviving the madness and getting back home. A very tiny few gung-ho types may have hoped to be idolized into the future
I would assume to some degree they realized they would be discussed/remembered......after all they were still naming people and places after the Revolutionary War.
 
With the amount of material collected in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, and the Official Records, there was a direct impetus for future studies and memories of the events after they took place. Whether in the midst of the fighting or not, as @JOHN42768 pointed out, there were the gung-ho types. But the loved ones that kept family history alive even then, I have to believe, had hopes their future kinfolk would hear, the lament and sorrow and the joy and spoil that war had decreed for themselves.
Lubliner.
 
I wonder if the men on both sides ever thought about how much they would be talked about 100-150 + years in the future ? Their courage, sacrifices and dedication to their causes, or if they thought they would be forgotten and swept into the dustbin of history. I wonder if they ever thought about the 20th-21 first century while they sat around the lonely campfires at night and talked about it ? What do you think ?
I'm sure that some during and most after realized that they survived/participated in a major historic event. They would have learned and read of ancient, middle ages and colonial conflicts to understand that documentation was occurring during/would occur after the war.
 
I'm thinking that during the war, their thoughts of the future were based on living to see the end of the war and getting on with their lives. After the war was over is when they thought about what they had done, what they accomplished and what effects it would have on future generations.
 
Many of the veterans of the ACW lived well into the 20th century. Those veterans and family members would have known that after all those years, the memory, legacy, and sacrifices of the war were not being forgotten.
 
I tend to think that the average person didn't expect to be remembered except through their leaders - the statues and monuments that went up about a generation later throughout the country were funded in large by above-average Joe. Really average Joe probably already knew nobody was going to remember him!

Just getting back to normal was a worthy goal - and some people had weird reactions to the future. Some time after the huge battle of Franklin, a farmer decided to plow his field and plant wheat where around two thousand Confederates were already planted! He figured they were mostly farmers and would understand... :confused:
 
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