End of the Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemorated in Knoxville
Inside of Knoxville blog commemorates big event (by: KnoxvilleUrbanGuy):
As I walked through Krutch Park last Saturday on my way to a delightful discussion of downtown with a small group of parishioners at the First Presbyterian Church, I passed a friend among the gathering groups of civil war reenactors and other interested parties. With a smile he asked, “Are we ever going to get over this war?”
It’s not a bad question. It ended a hundred-fifty years ago and yet, we continue to discuss it, debate it and commemorate it in various ways. We’ve had numerous wars since, but it does stand out in several regards. Roughly 750,000 Americans died in that war, which dwarfs all others in our history. The nearest comparable war was World War II in which just over 400,000 died. Also, the scars of divided families, communities and states cuts deeply and is intrinsically different psychologically than a war in which all of the country is united against a common foe.
