The Civil War in Four Minutes

Friends,

Actually, this video is four minutes and twenty-five seconds long. And it shows the progress of the Civil War from beginning to its bitter end (a while after Lincoln was killed, in case you didn't realize that).

This video below is simple, but somehow it is just gripping. Why? Well, while it is impossibly small, but if you could possibly see the running toll of casualties in the lower right hand it will break your heart. Just watching that roll over, and over, and over...makes me want to cry.

You can see the video in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois. And that's where I saw it first. Alongside so many other objects related to Lincoln and the Civil War. And throughout my tour of the museum, I had to fight back crying quite a few times. Especially in the recreation of Lincoln laying in state where I was damn near blubbering. There is something about patriotism, and putting your life on the line because of it that moves me so much, and I don't really know why. Love of country? Confusion over feeling so strongly about an idea, and one so strange as patriotism, that its worth losing your life over? Just a general fear of death? A combination? I can't place it fully. All I know, is that if I ever get to go back to the ALPM, I'm going to be bringing Kleenexes.




viva el mustache