The National Cemetery at Alexandria, Va., was one of the first government-maintained cemeteries established during the Civil War.
XI. THE WAR’S LEGACY
Perhaps it was necessary for brother to fight brother to determine the course in history our nation would take. Tragedy often walks with greatness; it required a terrible war before America could continue with confidence down the road of progress. The Civil War was the watershed—both a beginning and an end—in our history, and many legacies of that war keep it ever-present in our thoughts.
The Civil War lives in battle names now so much a part of our heritage: Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Stone’s River, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Atlanta, the Wilderness, and the Crater. These grounds, drenched in human blood, are as sacred as our most revered cemeteries.
—It lives in the crosses that mark the final resting places for thousands of American patriots. Most of these soldiers died in the flower of youth. We shall never know what contributions their numbers might have made to politics, literature, the sciences, the arts—to American life in general. In this respect was the conflict of the 1860’s a great calamity.
Acclaimed by many as the best likeness of “Stonewall” Jackson, this equestrian statue is on the grounds of the Manassas National Military Park.
—It lives in the many statues and monuments erected across our land. These stone images stand as silent sentries of our past. They are reminders of the cost of what today belongs to all Americans.
—It lives in the Congressional Medal of Honor, given birth by that war, and in Memorial Day, which sprang from the heartache caused by that war.
—It lives in the American Red Cross, whose origins date from Clara Barton and her tender nursing of wounded Federal soldiers.