Although Danish born and now living once again in Denmark, Nanna is bilingual. She lives in South West Denmark but has travelled extensively in England and America.
Now a translator and writer, her long walks in the Trenton Cemetery of New Jersey, USA, amongst the grave stones of so many young men who died in the American Civil War led to the article that follows and was her first one published. It is reproduced here with Nanna's kind permission.
Altogether there are 246 graves of Civil War veterans in Riverview Cemetery. Most of these are located in a soldier's plot, purchased in 1862 and maintained by the City of Trenton especially for Civil War veterans.
Captain McCoy's life, like the lives of all the other men buried in the soldier's plot, is recalled with a small and plain white sandstone marker. Time, as if wanting to obliterate their sacrifice and thus their place in history, has destroyed most of the names engraved on these stones.
Not so the organizer and commander of the army of the Potomac and later Governor of New Jersey, George McClellan. His life and his place in history is celebrated with Trenton's tallest grave marker; an imposing shaft of granite surmounted by the American Eagle. Given that the American Eagle is the emblem of valor and courage, that granite, quarried from the earth, is strong and enduring and that the obelisk a measure of the man, it would appear that McClellan was of greater worth than the men he commanded.
A young man of barely twenty, a modern William McCoy perhaps, is considered morally corrupt if he does not volunteer for the war. Any war, where his life may be forfeit in the blink of an eye, where his body yearning to live, may be torn asunder, where his mind containing only the thoughts and desires of the young, will be broken into pieces; pieces he will later not recognize as belonging to himself. This young man is one of the commanded; a very small part of a large army. An army without which there could be no war, and thus no commanders.
In a book about the Civil war, a picture of McClellan, graduate of West Point, shows a proud and hardy and well nourished man dressed in a fine uniform holding a pair of binoculars in his left hand. On the opposite page is a picture of a ragtag - just drafted - still short of uniforms and weaponry, but long on patriotism - army of men and boys, holding what appears to be wooden clubs.
The General who would soon lead this ill equipped army had few doubts about his ability to lead and command, for in a letter to his wife he wrote, ' When I ... found those old men flocking around me; when I afterwards looked over the Capitol of our great nation ... I began to feel how great the task committed to me .... Who would have thought, when we were married, that I would soon be called upon to save my country.' - and McClellan is remembered for having done just that. His grave marker in Riverview stands testimony.
Of the 246 men buried in the soldier's plot, only a few inscriptions can be deciphered now. A walk among the sandstone markers will show you almost nothing of the men buried there, not even their names. They too fought with valor and courage, they too showed that they were men, they too were called upon to save their country. And they died horrible deaths. Not theirs the loving embrace of a sweetly scented woman, not theirs the joy of a first born child, not theirs the reminiscences of an old man to his grandchild. Theirs, only death before having lived.
On Memorial Day, a flag is placed alongside each grave, to honor and commemorate the sacrifice of these men; these soldiers who died so valiantly for a cause, a country they believed in. Who are these men? They have no names, no life or death remembered. Tracing a gentle hand along the poor inscriptions on the sandstone yields just the ravages of time. The winds and the rains that wiped away their names and only a fragment of illusion in your mind, mere imagination, will call forth a face, a life - a right to be remembered. A son, My son - a cry! Please...not this life that sprang from mine, to lie where no one sees his face, his dreams, his wishes and desires.... not my son!
But he is your son, and you do not know it - for you have no care for the child of yesterday. He is best forgotten, enmeshed as he is, in the guilt of your life. Even should he live, you cannot see him, phantom as he is, invisible among the living. And we turn aside from the face of ghosts not remembered with glory.
The Vietnam Memorial in Washington is not a testimony to love, but to guilt. Still, and albeit hard won, the names are etched in granite, valor, courage and patriotism recalled. Generals and plain soldiers celebrated together.
The Civil War started in 1862, more than a century ago. Many wars have been fought since then and many soldiers have died in each war. As the time recedes, so does our memory, and with each new war the last one is pushed further back against time. Still, the Civil War should be fresh in our minds for it is taught as part of the history curriculum in every High School, College and University.
The emancipation of the black slaves, the reconstruction of North and South are very important pieces of American history. School children in Trenton are regularly taken on excursions to stand below and, view with awe, the huge granite testimony to General George McClellan, a hero of the Civil War. How puny the small and plain white sandstone makers will seem to the children of today. They will believe, without actually understanding, that valor and courage and the standards of manhood are measured for and belong only to the great. Only they deserve the label of hero. And a day may come when they, the children now young adults, will fight and die in a war, their names and their lives nothing more than a faint memory etched on a sandstone marker.
Lest we forget! Why have we forgotten?
© Nanna Mercer 1997
In 1938 the last Civil War veteran, Captain William H. McCoy, born in Trenton, New Jersey, was buried in South Trenton's Riverview Cemetery. General George McClellan, commander of the army of the Potomac, is also buried there.