Lee's Traveller and John Murtha's Great-Grandfather

The floor is scuffed and wooden, as are the desks lined up in neat rows facing the blackboard. Above it hangs a large painting of Robert E. Lee standing next to his horse Traveller. Not the one here, I think, for no battle flag was in evidence. Perhaps other pictures dotted the faded walls, but none sticks so well in my memory.

In this second-floor classroom of old St. Andrews Parish High School on the site of an even older phosphate mine, Miss Seabrook conducted homeroom with daily Bible readings by students and taught United States history to a mixed group of new suburbanites and old farmers' kids ("dungarees" were banned in honor of the latter), all white, mostly children of the South, most with English last names.

That was nearly half a century ago. Even then Traveller had long ago gone to his final rest (with a commemorative plaque) at Washington and Lee University, and most history teachers cared little about his existence.

This is my past, but it is Charleston's past also. And the past of America. And it's not over.

Take the case of Rep. John Murtha of western Pennsylvania. He recently extolled his great-grandfather's service and loss of an arm for the Union cause, calling that Civil-War experience a source of his inspiration before Congress in debate and again to Chris Matthews on Hardball (March 23rd).

Matthews seemed genuinely shocked that Murtha had a great-grandfather in the Civil War! Please, Chris. How many other hundreds of thousands are alive today whose great-grandfathers served in that same war?

My teenage maternal great-grandfather, captured at the Battle of Gettysburg, spend the remainder of the war at the notorious Point Lookout, Maryland, prisoner-of-war camp. When the war was over, he walked (yes, just like in the movie) all the way home to Charlotte. On my wall hangs his photograph with my Aunt Jane (a two-year-old) on his knee. He seems to be wistfully looking out a window.

I wonder sometimes about his memories. I think he would have liked to see Lee and Traveller on the wall.