Figure 1 – “Appomattox courthouse” by Timothy H. O’Sullivan. – In the public domain because of its age.

Significantly, yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Courthouse, thus ending the American Civil War.  Honestly, it should be a very somber moment and for Americans a time to reflect on where we were, where we are, and where we are going. It is not sufficient to excuse the excesses of the past with the fact that we were not there.  We are certainly here now.

There are some marvelous images of yesterday’s reenactment.  These are strikingly brilliant and vibrant in their color. And they may, in that regard, be contrasted with Timothy O’Sulivan’s photograph of Union Soldiers gathered at the court house a century and a half ago.  But the fact is that the world to these men was not monochrome.  Indeed, the color of their lives was, in all probability, made so much more brilliant by the prospects that the war’s end represented to them.