Re: Co D 14th ALA Infantry
Richard- You are very right. I was a History and Anthropology major undergrad and one of the things that was drilled into us over and over is that one cannot impose modern morals, values, ways of thinking onto our ancestors who operated under sometimes completely different cultures. I've never been a feminist per se, and I do empathize much more closely with the ethos that men take care of the women and look out for them--the concept of a "chivalrous protector" is not vague or foreign to me having been raised in Decatur and Marietta, GA where the War was very real even 100 years later in the 1960s. I can NOT imagine what the day-to-day lives of those in eastern central Alabama must've been like back then. When my grandmother's parents were married in 1867, father of the bride was Army veteran, father of the groom served in the CS Navy and I wonder if they talked about their tours of duty at the reception or if the wounds were still so fresh that it wasn't spoken of very much. For that matter, did Reconstruction make them feel as if they sacrificed so much in vain? Or were they just grateful they survived when so many of their brothers, cousins, friends did not? It's all such a mystery as to what they really thought and felt...we can only glimpse at their lives in the letters that have managed to be preserved and passed down through the generations I suppose.