Reflecting on war history to prevent future repetition

By Cleve Wiese

Published: May 25, 2008

A wide-eyed young boy carefully examined a gleaming bayonet as its owner, Civil War re-enactor Waverly Adcock, watched with a smile.
“Education is one of our main goals,” Adcock, 39, said of his group, the West Augusta Guard. “We’ll talk to just about whoever will listen.”
Adcocks and his compatriots, clad in the grey garb of the Confederate Army, stood at attention Sunday as around 150 people paid homage the Southern men and women who gave their lives, both in the Civil War and in America’s subsequent armed conflicts. 
The memorial ceremony in Staunton’s Thornrose Cemetery — organized annually by the United Daughters of the Confederacy – was set apart this year by the 120th anniversary of the Confederate Monument, a 22-foot high marble sculpture on the site where the cemetery’s first Confederate soldier was buried in 1861.
Early memorial ceremonies at the hilltop site were celebratory occasions, with food, music, speeches and parades, said Margaret Ann Whittington, president of the James S.A. Crawford Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Sunday’s event was no exception, with homemade refreshments, period music provided by the Stonewall Brigade Band Brass Ensemble, a troop of uniformed Confederate re-enactors and an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers, many clad in 1860-era finery.
“It’s a good show for someone not familiar with this period of history which will hopefully make them want to learn more about it,” Whittington said.
That’s important, Whittington said, because remembering Confederate history can play a real role in promoting present-day peace. 
“It can make people understand how fragile everything is and how close we are to losing it,” she said.
While some criticize the continuing celebration of Confederate heritage, the cataclysmic impact of the Civil War on the South demands ongoing remembrance and respect, said keynote speaker Nancy Sorrells, a member of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors as well as a historian and author.
“There’s a difference between getting over it and forgetting it,” she said.
After the end of the Civil War, a government program funded and facilitated the burial of Union dead, Sorrells said. Confederate dead, however, were left to rot on battlefields across the South. Women took the situation into their own hands, locating the remains of soldiers, arranging for proper burials, and organizing memorial ceremonies, she said.
“Very quickly the women of the South stepped up to the plate,” Sorrells said.
Ad-hoc groups of concerned Southern women gradually coalesced into the United Daughters of the Confederacy – America’s oldest patriotic organization, Whittington said. Since its founding in 1896 the group has worked to protect and commemorate both Confederate heritage and the contributions of Southern men and women in all American wars. During Sunday’s ceremony, the organization’s highest award – the Southern Cross of Honor – was bestowed posthumously on Major Joe X. Bell, a Virginia native with Confederate ancestry who was killed in action during World War II.
Raymond Lee Swatley, 81, of Mt. Sidney, who served in the navy during World War II, said he saw Sunday’s ceremony as an opportunity to honor both the soliders of various wars and the people who ensure their contributions are remembered. 
“It’s a privilege to be able to thank these women,” Swatley said. “I learned a lot of history today.”