The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms...The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured? Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. [Confederate General John Brown] Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual,—honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!
— Joshua L. Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies, pp. 260-61
In time, even death itself might be abolished; who knows but it may be given to us after this life to meet again in the old quarters, to play chess and draughts, to get up soon to answer the morning role call, to fall in at the tap of the drum for drill and dress parade, and again to hastily don our war gear while the monotonous patter of the long roll summons to battle.
Who knows but again the old flags, ragged and torn, snapping in the wind, may face each other and flutter, pursuing and pursued, while the cries of victory fill a summer day? And after the battle, then the slain and wounded will arise, and all will meet together under the two flags, all sound and well, and there will be talking and laughter and cheers, and all will say, Did it not seem real? Was it not as
in the old days?-Berry Benson, Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter.
CSA septuagenarians reenacting Pickett's Charge to moans and gasps of Union veterans,
meeting again at the stone wall, and shaking hands. Gettysburg, 1913.
American "exceptionalism" began with the Civil War: an election held right in the middle of the war; vicious fighting for four years, assassination, unparalleled magnanimity at the end; reconstruction; "binding up the nation's wounds" "with malice toward none;" the enemy reunions; the election of a Southerner, a Virginian, Woodrow Wilson, as president only forty-eight years after Appomattox.
General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, "The Fighting Professor," who extended a final salute to, and received the final salute back from, General John Brown Gordon at Appomattox, called the Great Reunion "transcendent" moment. That is the word! During the Civil War Americans transcended the human and achieved an other-worldly grace.
"Did it not seem real?" It did not seem real even to those who knew that it was real because they were there. That was the birth of American exceptionalism and that birth certificate is real.
