IN 1974 THE Petersburg National Battlefield (PNB) placed a marker at Battery Nine, along the driving tour, to acknowledge its capture by USCTs on June 15, 1864. At about the same time, residents of Petersburg learned that their battlefields had been included, along with twelve other historical sites, as National Historical Landmarks with a connection to black history. Other signs of change could be seen on the battlefield as well. Superintendent Larry Hakel indicated that the staff would redouble its efforts to interpret the battlefields so as to reflect the participation of black soldiers. Visual changes could be seen as well with the inclusion of two black interpreters in the park’s Living History program. One of the two was Henry Branch, a history major at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Many of the visitors tell me,” said Branch, that “I am the first black they have seen involved in living history presentations.” Regrettably, he noted, “Some, when I get to the part blacks played in the Civil War, turn and walk away.”1
The challenges faced by the PNB in the 1970s had much in common with those faced by other public and private historical institutions, such as Colonial Williamsburg, the John Brown House, Monticello, and countless historic plantation homes that dealt with the tough questions of how to interpret slavery and race. Although the limited number of scholarly studies was in part to blame, more practical problems included limits on finances, scarcity of artifacts that reflected the African American and USCT experience in Petersburg, and sparse attendance by black Americans.2
By the end of the 1970s, and particularly after the release of Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family in 1976, it was becoming much more difficult to fend off challenges and discontent from those who visited historical sites and found the coverage of black history seriously lacking. Haley’s popular miniseries’ portrayal of African Americans as full historical agents revealed a richer history that had been hidden behind years of white control of historical sites. African Americans who went looking for their story at some of the nation’s most cherished historical locations must have been sorely disappointed. For a growing number of people, however, that disappointment translated into action.3
The popular diffusion of a narrative more sympathetic to the experiences of African Americans during the Civil War was aided by continued advances in the scholarship of slavery as well as of the military history of the Civil War. Historians of slavery continued to uncover the myriad ways in which the actions of slaves, on the plantation, in contraband camps, and eventually in the army itself, contributed to Union victory while military historians broadened their understanding of battles and campaigns to include the experiences of noncombatants. Such scholarship opened up opportunities not only to challenge many deeply ingrained institutional narratives but to suggest ways to supplement and enrich those stories as well.4
The most concerted challenge to the PNB took place in 1978, when a group from Howard University, led by Professor Joseph E. Harris, visited to survey the steps taken to explain the history of black Americans in the city of Petersburg as well as in the Petersburg campaign. The team looked specifically at how well the National Park Service had integrated this black history into its overall interpretation of the battlefields. The final report clearly reflected the damage done as a result of the sanitization of the Civil War over the course of the twentieth century and offered a specific set of recommendations to begin to correct this oversight.
The report begins on an optimistic note: the “Petersburg National Battlefield is an excellent site to illustrate the contributions of black personnel during the Civil War.” Since both the Union and Confederate sides had used the services of blacks, park officials would be able to include exhibits that reflected the “various occupations in which slaves and freedmen were employed.” To achieve this goal, however, specific steps were recommended. Interviews with park employees revealed how little information about the black experience during the Petersburg campaign was shared with visitors. While some rangers showed interest in the story of black soldiers at the Crater, others were unaware of their participation in the battles or of the support roles played by slaves and free blacks. According to the report, some employees assumed a defensive posture, refusing to share what information was available about USCTs when the general public asked questions. The lack of black personnel was also of concern to the research team, as the PNB “has never had more than a few black employees” and those who had been hired were in positions other than as guides and interpreters. The report recommended that black employees be hired on a three-year cycle, though it did reference the attempt to hire interns from Virginia State College.5
The most revealing section of the report touches on how local black students at Virginia State College felt about the way in which the National Park Service presented the battle to the public. According to college archivist Lucious Edwards, “The students are offended by the sympathetic presentation which glorifies the southern counterattack against the black soldiers at the Crater, while previous exploits of black soldiers are dismissed in a few words.” The students, continued Edwards, “consider the primary function of Petersburg National Battlefield as maintaining or glorifying the image of the Confederacy” and were left with the unfortunate impression “that local white residents view the park as their own personal recreation area and that blacks have only a token Negro’s heritage in a negative setting.” On a more practical level, the research team suggested that the PNB supplement its library and books for purchase to include studies of the African American experience. “PNB publications present very little information about black soldiers,” the report continued, “and nothing about their interest in the Petersburg campaign.” The report concluded: “The Petersburg campaign, including the Battle of the Crater, is an excellent theme to incorporate the significance of black personnel during the Civil War. In this campaign, black troops were used in enormous numbers and were eager as well as trained for battle. The bravery displayed by black soldiers was indicative of their performance throughout the war. Therefore, it is recommended that park officials not only incorporate the achievements of black personnel in their capacities as soldiers and laborers but that personnel are trained to present details concerning the black presence in greater Petersburg.”6
In many ways the report reveals the consequences of the overall history of public memory of the Crater as well as white Southern control of the battle site. The absence of black interpreters and guides, an interpretation that failed to do justice to salient aspects of the battle and campaign, the lack of relevant literature that could be purchased by visitors, all point to just how deeply embedded the traditional account was within the PNB’s institutional structure. The significance of this particular visit by local black students can be found not only in the content of the final report but in the important role that black institutions might continue to play in bringing about changes to the way public historians interpret the battle.7
The report’s suggestion that the PNB supplement its library and visitors’ center with books of broader history pointed to two growing divides, the first between the scholarly pursuits of academic historians and the general public, and the second between the increasing interest among African Americans in seeing their story told at public sites and the preferences of most white Americans, who remained preoccupied with a more traditional battlefield narrative. The problem persisted, however, that few black Americans traveled to Petersburg to visit the Crater, and there was very little indication that this would change in the near future. Without a diverse group of visitors, there was little pressure to tell the complete story or to provide a wider range of reading materials.8
While interest in the black experience in the Civil War among professional scholars continued to grow, resulting in ever more sophisticated scholarly studies, it took two events in 1989—the release of the movie Glory and Ken Burns’s PBS series, The Civil War—to introduce the broader public to this relatively unknown aspect of the American past. Glory told the story of the men who served in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and their commander, Colonel Robert G. Shaw, the account culminating in the failed assault at Battery Wagner in July 1863. The movie, starring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick, offered the general public a heroic account of the trials faced by the men in the regiment and traced the evolution of Shaw’s relationship with the men under his command. For many Americans—including Denzel Washington, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the black actors used as extras in the film—this was their introduction to the history of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts and the subject of black Civil War soldiers. The film offered its black actors a chance to commemorate and remember the sacrifice of African American soldiers, which in turn led to the organization of a viable black reenacting community and, for a few, a long-term commitment to educating the public. For one reenactor, wearing the blue uniform constituted a tangible “missing link between the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement.”9
The success of the movie translated into increased attention, once again, to the history of “colored” soldiers in the pages of popular black magazines such as Jet and Ebony. A lengthy essay featured in the February 1991 issue of Ebony included a number of popular colored lithographs depicting black soldiers in battle in places such as Battery Wagner, Petersburg, and Milliken’s Bend. The article was preceded by a full-page advertisement: “Pepsi Salutes the Glory of Black History.” Echoing the commentary in the movie, the author reminded his readers that after the failed assault at Battery Wagner, these men “provided the margin of difference that turned the tide against the Confederate forces in 1864 and 1865.” For black Americans who wished to follow up their visit to the movie theater and explore this history further, Jet magazine introduced its readers to Paul Batchelor’s extensive collection of war memorabilia and to Don North of Atlanta, who at the time was planning to open a $1.5 million museum devoted to black Civil War soldiers. Despite the popularity of the movie and the critical acclaim it received, some moviegoers viewed the story more as a celebration of Colonel Shaw than as a story about black soldiers. This left some with the lingering question of whether a movie could be made that described the experiences of black soldiers more directly, without having to filter them through the letters and commentary of a white officer.10
The movie led to proposals for national monuments to honor African American soldiers. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and Washington, D.C., mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon proposed the first national monument in 1991. “When you come to Washington, D.C. and you celebrate the great contributions of Americans,” asserted the mayor, “there is one very missing chapter in all of these monuments and all of these expressions.” The proposal suggested etching the names of 185,000 black soldiers into granite slabs. Another monument was proposed for a location close to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Washington Mall. These proposals led directly to the dedication of the African American Civil War Memorial in 1998, located in the “U” Street district of the city under the leadership of Frank Smith. The monument includes a wall that lists the names of 209,145 black Union soldiers on 166 burnished stainless steel plaques arranged by regiment. Closer to the Crater, a monument was dedicated to the “valorous service” of USCTs in 1993 at the site of Battery 9, to mark their initial assaults against Petersburg in June 1864. In addition to the dedication of new monuments, Americans also commemorated the 100th anniversary of the dedication of Augustus Saint Gaudens’s monument to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, located across from the Statehouse on Beacon Street in Boston.11
Despite the national public awareness raised by popular Hollywood movies, television programs, and the dedication of new monuments, much of the struggle to broaden interpretation at historic sites throughout the South after the 1960s was carried out most effectively, though not without controversy, by local governments, which had increasingly come to reflect a more interracial and multiethnic citizenry. Political changes throughout the former Confederacy were fueled not only by larger numbers of African Americans going to the polls but also by an emerging self-identification as “Southerners.” This identification has led in recent years to large numbers of black Americans moving back to the South.12
The Petersburg City Council contained a majority of African Americans by 1973. In 1984, after the resignation of Mayor R. Wilson Cheely, Florence Farley became the first female mayor of Petersburg and the first African American woman to become mayor of a Virginia city. During this same period, the former capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, boasted both a black mayor and a predominantly black city council. Such dramatic changes in the racial profile of local government have led to the altering of the city’s historical landscape to more accurately reflect its population. Although no sustained attempts were made to remove Richmond’s many monuments to its Confederate past during this period, projects that proposed adding monuments to historic sites forced the community to confront tough questions of how the past ought to be remembered and commemorated. This could be seen in the 1995 decision to place a statue of Arthur Ashe on Monument Avenue (within walking distance of statues of “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee, J. E. B. Stuart, and Jefferson Davis), and in the April 2003 unveiling of a statue depicting Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad at the Richmond National Battlefield Park, located at the site of the Tredegar Iron Works—a branch of the National Park Service. Challenges to local historic landscapes that reflect competing visions of the past have continued to grow in much of the South over the past ten years.13
Changes to historic landscapes in Virginia and other forms of remembrance, especially those associated with the Civil War, evoke strong emotions and contentious debate because they often force the general public to confront the difficult history of slavery and race. The long history of viewing Civil War battlefields as places where brother fought brother and both sides fought for values that were equally honorable continues to be embraced by many. This entrenched view has come under increasing scrutiny from constituencies that wish to connect with historic spaces through an interpretation that more accurately reflects either their family’s history or that of their broader community. Failure to change long-standing narratives of the Civil War runs the risk of alienating many. As one visitor to Gettysburg shared, “When you’re black, the great battlefield holds mixed messages.”14
Popular perceptions of the Crater have followed these unstable fault lines. Under the guidance of park historian Chris Calkins, who arrived in 1981, the PNB has made progress both in preserving the physical landscape of Petersburg’s battlefields and in expanding the park’s interpretation to include coverage of the role of USCTs during the battle as well as to explore broader themes of race and emancipation. In the early 1990s new wayside markers were placed at the Crater site, including one that focuses on Mahone’s counterattack and the Confederate reaction to the sight of black soldiers. While there was little debate regarding the decision to use a passage from a well-known letter by William Pegram, in which he conveyed the Confederate outrage over black participation in the Union attack, as part of an audio overview, designers did acknowledge the possibility that some visitors might feel uncomfortable or not approve at all.15
Since 2000 the debate over how to interpret Civil War battlefields has been fought in light of the National Park Service’s “Rally on the High Ground” symposium, which explored opportunities to broaden its coverage of the battles to include analyses of race and emancipation. The meeting followed on the heels of language added to an appropriations bill by Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., the secretary of the Interior, which directed “the National Park Service managers of Civil War battle sites to recognize and include in all of their public displays and multimedia educational presentations, the unique role that the institution of slavery played in causing the Civil War and its role, if any, at the individual battle sites.” Jackson had recently visited twenty Civil War–related sites, and his actions were likely the result of frustration over the absence of black faces. Jackson’s own personal conviction that “race . . . is the lens through which I, as an African American, view American history,” was also likely meant as a statement made on behalf of the African American community.16
The National Park Service held a two-day conference in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., to discuss ways to meet the goals of the secretary’s directive. Professional historians such as James McPherson, Ira Berlin, Eric Foner, and David Blight dominated the conference, and panels focused on various ways to integrate discussions of the broader concepts of freedom, democracy, and emancipation into the Park Service’s programs. Some in the broader Civil War community continue to view these changes as reflective of more ominous cultural and political shifts. Southern Heritage groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans interpret these changes as reflecting a belief “that the War Between the States was fought over slavery, period; that therefore all things Confederate are tainted by a tacit endorsement of slavery or its latter-day counterpart, ‘racism,’ and therefore those who venerate them are racists.” Others described the decision as an insult to the Confederate soldier, as “South-bashing propaganda,” or as an “attempt to change the way that a battlefield is interpreted to include social issues of the day.”17
Within the National Park Service itself there are lingering disagreements between historians who believe that battlefields are properly interpreted when the focus is on military strategy, tactics, and the experiences of the soldiers and those who support a more expansive interpretation that situates the landscape within a social, political, or racial context when appropriate. It is likely that future historians and frontline interpreters, trained in the field of public history and introduced to the latest scholarship, will add their voices in favor of an expansive interpretation.18
Soon after this reform mandate, the PNB issued a general management plan that addressed every aspect of how it engages visitors: in the visitors’ center, through educational outreach, and especially on the battlefield. The authors of the report acknowledged that new interpretive themes were necessary, given the past quarter century of scholarship in cultural, social, and political history. While visitors were already exposed to the experiences of USCTs during the Petersburg campaign and at the Crater, an expansive interpretation would go further to show how these men “took their place as full participants in the army and the Civil War, although not in society as a whole.” This involved explaining the “evolution” and “deployment” of USCTs, demonstrating how the military and political decisions made in Washington affected black soldiers in Petersburg, and comparing the wartime experiences of these men with postwar challenges and accomplishments.19
Attention to educational outreach by PNB may be the most important step taken to shift and broaden the way the next generation experiences the area’s battlefields and other historic resources. Materials include resources for field trips as well as classroom activities. The emphasis on grades 4–6 acknowledges a crucial phase in the cognitive development of children in this age group, as they begin to develop a sense of themselves as part of a larger community that extends into the past. Students can experience life at the Eppes Plantation at City Point by exploring the “experiences of a slave, a plantation owner and a military general through a look at the songs of the period.” At the Crater, a park ranger helps students to examine the motivation of Confederate and Union soldiers, including the USCTs: “To have asked Sergeant Decatur Dorsey of the 39th USCT, Private John Haley of the 17th Maine, and Private William Pilcher of the Richmond Artillery Otey Battery, what the cost was that day they might have pointed out the five thousand casualties that changed nothing. Ask them why they fought that day and words like ‘freedom,’ ‘equality,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘home’ may have been spoken. Knowing that all three fought until the war’s end, you would not have to ask about the depth of commitment.” Finally, students can examine copies of Decatur Dorsey’s record of service to better understand why he chose to fight and how he experienced life in uniform.20
The report also emphasized the importance of forging stronger ties with the surrounding community. The challenges associated with attracting African Americans to Civil War battlefields have deep roots, stemming back to a postwar ambivalence concerning the remembrance and commemoration of a collective past steeped in slavery. Feelings rooted in “shame” and “fear” as well as a lingering suspicion that Civil War battlefields exist to allow the white community to assert the primacy of its experience in that event have proven to be further obstacles to attracting African American visitors. Arguably, no factor in the continued resistance of African Americans to take part in battlefield events is more prominent than the presence of that divisive symbol, the Confederate flag. It is likely that black communities will resist embracing historic sites and other public displays and ceremonies that include what many perceive to be a symbol of “Massive Resistance” and white supremacy.21
The park’s decision to expand its focus to address the lives of both enslaved and free blacks in the Petersburg area, made to address history important in its own right, was also intended to serve as a bridge to a community that has, at times, expressed suspicion and a belief that the history represented on the battlefield is not their own. Invited responses from private citizens and local officials to a National Park Service draft proposal suggest that the local community is receptive to these interpretive revisions as a means to attract new constituents, build stronger ties with the community, and encourage tourism in an area that in recent years has experienced financial challenges. Interestingly, it was the decision by the PNB to establish a presence in downtown Petersburg that received the most approval from black civic leaders rather than a project related to the role of USCTs during the campaign. The response also suggests that the National Park Service’s visibility within the African American community of Petersburg may be just as important as the expansion of the overall narrative. One sign of this presence is the addition of walking tours of downtown Petersburg led by PNB rangers which, according to a recent news article, have attracted tourists and residents alike.22
Emmanuel Dabney represents a new generation of National Park Service rangers, trained in the latest scholarship and committed to imparting a rich interpretation of the battle that includes issues of race and slavery. (Petersburg Progress-Index, August 1, 2010)
It goes without saying that the process of building a relationship with the community will take time. For many African Americans who have grown up in Petersburg, the battlefield is still a foreign country. Before the last few decades, children were rarely taught the local black history that would serve to connect them to the battlefield. Richard Stewart, a lifelong resident of Pocahontas Island who has amassed an impressive collection of documents and artifacts related to local history on display in his home, remembers the Crater as the place “where the war was fought” and where an explosion took place. The feeling that there was “nothing” at the Crater “to give meaning to my life” was reinforced during the era of segregation by an unstated belief that the battlefield was the domain of whites. For former Petersburg mayor Rosalyn Dance, the Crater “was a name, but it meant nothing.”23
The National Park Service staff in Petersburg would have a much more difficult challenge without a working relationship with the local government. In 1994 the city council adopted a plan from the Department of Planning and Community Development that acknowledged, “The events, persons, places, and values of particular importance to African Americans in Petersburg have not been adequately represented.” One important observation contained in the report underscores the belief among some local residents that the preservation of African American history ought not to be reduced or understood simply as the preservation of artifacts and historic landscapes. This is especially true for those black residents who are descended from slaves rather than from the vibrant free black population that existed in the city before the Civil War. The uncovering and preservation of ancestral ties between people may be just as important, if not more so, to the former. “Any attempt to gain their widespread involvement,” the report concludes, “must include the identification and recording of genealogical connections.”24
The strong African American presence in local government over the past two decades has created a visible public space for residents to advocate for historic preservation and research that strengthens their identity as members of a community with a rich collective past. In recent years it was discovered that Blandford Cemetery, which contains the graves of the most prominent past members of the community, as well as the beautiful Tiffany windows in Blandford Church commemorating the Confederate cause, also contains the graves of African Americans. Visitors can now look up the names of these individuals in the cemetery’s catalogue located in the visitors’ center, while the Petersburg Siege Museum now displays artifacts from local black history as part of its permanent exhibit.25
Two recent popular depictions of the Crater suggest both continuity and change in our public memory of the battle. The 2003 film Cold Mountain opens with a graphic sequence of the battle of the Crater, used to highlight the disillusion of the main character, Inman, with the Confederate war effort. This scene reflects the gap that still exists between narratives that highlight strictly military themes and more recent developments that point to the battle’s racial import. The intensity of the explosion is captured, as are the confused reactions of Confederates caught in the middle. The subsequent Union assaults break down, as most of the attacking force gets caught in the crater, which is inaccurately depicted as both too large and much too steep. Still, the close hand-to-hand fighting realistically shows, as few Civil War movies have done in the past, the horror of battle and the relative ease with which Confederates withstood the Union attack.26
Any analysis of the movie’s depiction of black Union soldiers must keep in mind that the story does not revolve around these men. That said, the production staff made a conscious choice to re-create the battle of the Crater and went to certain lengths to account for some of its salient features. While the battle scenes show glimpses of USCTs as part of the attacking force, it would be impossible for an uneducated viewer to know that they constituted an entire division. Whether minimizing the presence of black soldiers was a conscious choice made during the editing stages or not is impossible to determine; however, at least one scene that did not make the final cut raises the possibility that producers were concerned about how well the racial theme of the battle would be received by the audience. The scene, which takes place after the battle, involves a disgruntled Confederate soldier who notices a severely wounded black soldier crawling on the ground. The Confederate attempts to shoot him but cannot find a loaded weapon, all the while mumbling racial epithets at the wounded man. Finally, after three attempts, the black soldier is executed at point-blank range. Given the difficulty involving the accurate representation of USCTs in the types of interpretations discussed in these pages, it is reasonable to conclude that this scene was cut out of concern that it might alienate or even offend the audience.
Also in 2003 the popular Civil War artist Don Troiani released Mahone’s Counterattack, which focuses on the attack of the Sixth Virginia and provides a sharp contrast to John Elder’s earlier representation of the same moment during the battle. In that earlier painting Elder concentrated on the men of the Twelfth Virginia, while black Union soldiers were shown simply as the objects of Confederate rage. Troiani’s depiction of the same event provides an interpretation that falls in line with recent trends in the historiography of USCTs as well as with the desire among many to see these men portrayed as courageous. The men are shown huddled together in the trenches with their white comrades; some are standing to face the Confederate charge while others are fleeing to the rear. Black and white soldiers reflect the full range of emotion and action on the battlefield. Although the title of the painting references Mahone’s men, a black soldier stands courageously clutching the Stars and Stripes as a Confederate soldier takes aim in his direction. In today’s Civil War art market, Don Troiani’s work prominently featuring black Union soldiers as full historical actors is worth acknowledging in contrast to the overwhelming number of prints depicting scenes of the Lost Cause that are bought by consumers who are attracted to those themes. Troiani’s painting and Cold Mountain suggest that while our understanding of the battle and the role of black soldiers has progressed, there still remains significant unwillingness on the part of the general public to acknowledge the tough issues of race in popular perceptions of Civil War history.
The legacy of reunion and reconciliation that took hold by the turn of the twentieth century and the more recent changes stemming from the cultural and political shifts ensuing from the civil rights movement are likely to continue to reinforce competing memories of the Crater and the Civil War. In contrast to the Civil War centennial, we are likely to see a very different emphasis throughout the Civil War sesquicentennial. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 allowed Americans, both black and white, to peer into the rich and, at times, dark history of race relations to better understand and celebrate this important milestone. Not surprisingly, Obama’s election has opened up opportunities to highlight the contributions of African Americans to the Civil War.
In 2009 President Obama was petitioned to discontinue a White House tradition of sending a wreath to the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. Organizers of the petition argued that the monument was “intended as a symbol of white nationalism, portrayed in opposition to the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction, and a celebration of the re-establishment of white supremacy in the former slave states by former Confederate soldiers.” The petition received a fair amount of attention in the mainstream media, but Obama, rather than risk the negative fallout from discontinuing a tradition that most Americans were unaware of, chose to maintain the practice but to send a second wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. The decision highlighted the museum, the panels listing the names of USCTs by regiment, and the beautiful monument The Spirit of Freedom by sculptor Ed Hamilton.27
Mahone’s Counterattack, Don Troiani’s depiction of the Crater, reflects a less heroic depiction of war as well as a richer understanding of the sacrifices made by African Americans. (Historical Art Prints)
In contrast, on April 6, 2010, Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell reinstated Confederate History Month with a proclamation that emphasized the importance of honoring the “the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, solders and citizens” without a single reference to slavery. The release of the proclamation created a media firestorm. The response to the governor’s proclamation reflects the extent to which white and black Americans no longer identify with a Civil War remembrance that fails to acknowledge the centrality of slavery and emancipation to the war in Virginia. The governor’s prompt apology and release of a revised proclamation that included a clear statement pointing to slavery as the war’s defining issue demonstrate the influence of a segment of the general public that was shut out from engaging in public discourse just a few decades ago. Both cases point to deeply held competing memories of the Civil War and the difficulty of coming to terms with the history of slavery and race.28
The battle over memory of the Crater constitutes one small part of this broader dialogue and will continue to be shaped by it. Disagreements over how to interpret and remember the racial component of the battle of the Crater point to the extent to which Americans are willing to understand the Civil War’s significance as something more than a chivalrous contest between white Northerners and Southerners. This will involve resisting the temptation to ignore controversial and potentially divisive questions of race to create a sanitized narrative that downplays issues in favor of emphasizing shared values. While the tendency to suppress uncomfortable facts about race may help render the story more palatable, this would come at the price of sacrificing salient aspects of the history. More important, it suggests that until we are prepared to confront the tough questions about race in our Civil War history and elsewhere, we will continue to struggle to engage in honest dialogue about race in our society today.
