What we haven't learned in 150 years

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861 -- 150 years ago today -- Confederate Lt. Henry S. Farley fired a single 10-inch mortar round that exploded over Fort Sumter, S.C.

Inside the fort was Major Robert Anderson and his small Federal command. They had been there since December, waiting for reinforcements that never made it.

The Confederate barrage continued. Rabid Virginia secessionist Edmund Ruffin, who had come to Charleston that spring to witness history, fired one of the first shots.

Anderson waited until after dawn to retaliate. At 7 a.m., the first Federal shot came from Captain Abner Doubleday, the man whom would later be given credit for "creating" the game of baseball. The only casualty was a Confederate horse. It was a bloodless beginning to a very bloody affair.

They didn't call it the Shot Heard Round the World -- that, you see, is relegated to important things like home runs -- but Fort Sumter touched off what would become known as the Civil War, a strange moniker indeed, given that this conflict was anything but civil. From then until even after Lee surrendered to Grant in April 1865, Americans went to war with one another. Nearly 620,000 would perish. So would an American president.

William Faulkner said perhaps more than he knew when he noted, years later, that "the past is never dead; it isn't even past."

To this day, Americans argue over what caused the war. To this day, they argue over what to call it, what to make of it, what to learn from it.

Abraham Lincoln is a hero to some, an anathema to others. Take a look at a presidential electoral map -- particularly from 2000 or 2004 -- and tell me that we still don't have a sectional divide. (2008 was an exception; it remains to be seen whether it will be an anomaly or a watershed.)

Civil War books continue to roll off the presses month after month. Civil War roundtables and societies can be found in virtually any American city of any size.

American political discourse in 2011, yes, still includes talk of secession.

Everything -- and nothing -- has changed.

I watched the first part of the Ken Burns documentary last night. Before drifting off to dream, I read a few pages from Bruce Catton's centennial history of the war, written 50 years ago. (He's better than even Shelby Foote, folks.)

I thought about that bloody pond at Shiloh, about the hallowed ground at Gettysburg, about the gentle spirit now belonging to the ages that left us while the man to whom it belonged lay dying in a small bed at the Petersen House in Washington on Good Friday, April 15, 1865.

I thought about those moving Mathew Brady images, about the dingy daguerreotypes of forgotten men and boys who didn't make it home, about the loved ones they left behind.

I thought about "Dixie," that sweet minstrel tune; and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the stirring stanza about the terrible swift sword; and the melody to the maudlin "Lorena."

I thought about the myths and the mysteries, the ugly truths and the damnable lies, the good, the bad, heaven and hell, and how the weather was.

And I thought, too, about the waste -- the utter, horrible waste of it all -- and wondered for the hundredth time how we ever came to think of this godawful bloodbath as anything remotely resembling romantic.

Old times there, you see, will never be forgotten, though His truth is marching on.

The mists of time

The tune was familiar, tinkling just so above the conversation, and I'm blaming a headache for not recognizing it sooner.

I ducked into the Half Barrel on the Strip about 4 to meet my friend and superb history professor Steve Ash. We try to get together once a year or so to catch up.

Steve teaches undergraduate classes on both Tennessee history and Civil War/Reconstruction at UT. He's an excellent lecturer and historian. I can recall leaving his sessions with a tinge of regret, wishing I could sit there for another hour and hear more about the plot to remove Andrew Johnson from office.

Another excellent professor, Lorri Glover, couldn't join us yesterday, so Steve told me all about his new book and we talked about the state of the world and swapped names of historians we liked and books we've loved. I told him about a longstanding project I've had bouncing around profiling a Marine unit in Vietnam. Steve thinks I have something and encouraged me to get off my butt and write the book.

Somewhere amid the talk about Bruce Catton and Thornton Wilder, I heard the song. Familiar. Friendly.

Finally, realization struck. RobinElla.

I noticed that the guy behind the bar was playing music via iTunes. I couldn't quite tell, but I think the song was "Waiting," from Robin's last album, "Solace for the Lonely." I smiled and thought about the rainy Friday night in Maryville when she sang "Left, Right, Back Together," and I swore later I'd never heard anything quite so beautiful.

Steve told me to stay in touch and disappeared into the afternoon. I finished my burger and drove back toward Halls, high on music and conversation, wishing I'd never left my dreams of becoming a historian lying back there somewhere in the mists of time.