Ol’ Joe Hooker, Won’t You Come out of the Wilderness?

Ol’ Joe Hooker, won’t you come out of the Wilderness?
Come out of The Wilderness, come out of the Wilderness?
Ol’ Joe Hooker, won’t you come out of the Wilderness?
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry!
Jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry!
If you want to catch the Devil, if you want to have fun,
If you want to smell Hell, jine the cavalry!

Today, 150 years ago, on the second bloodiest day of the War of Northern Aggression, General “Stonewall” Jackson lay wounded, having been hit by friendly fire the previous night during a recon of the battle lines after dark. Command of his corps, that had routed so much of the Army of the Potomac the previous day, fell to General A. P. Hill, who also fell wounded in turn.

General Rodes was next in line to take command, but by mutual agreement, General J.E.B. Stuart, the glamorous cavalry comander, took charge instead. It was his first time commanding infantry, but by all accounts he acquitted himself more than manfully, continuing to push the advantage that Jackson had gained on the 2nd. Said Stephen W. Sears,

It is hard to see how Jeb Stuart, in a new command, a cavalryman commanding infantry and artillery for the first time, could have done a better job. The astute Porter Alexander believed all credit was due: “Altogether, I do not think there was a more brilliant thing done in the war than Stuart’s extricating that command from the extremely critical position in which he found it.”

Stuart also spontaneously invented a new verse to the his theme song, “Jine the Cavalry,” which mocked the Union Commander, “Fighting Joe” Hooker, and Stuart sang the song all day while leading Jackson’s men into battle.

Hooker spent a good portion of the morning unconscious from an artillery blast that blew him off the porch of his command post, and accordingly, probably did not hear Stuart’s musical embellishments first hand.

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“The Enemy Fled Like Chaff Before the Wind”

You can go forward then.

-Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, to Gen. Robert E. Rodes, May 2, 1863, approximately 5:45 p.m.

All across the nearly two-mile width of Jackson’s front, the woods and fields resounded with the rebel yell as the screaming attackers bore down on the startled Federals, who had just risen to whoop at the frightened deer and driven rabbits. Now it was their turn to be frightened — and driven, too. For the Union regiments facing west gave way in a rush before the onslaught, and as they fled the two guns they had abandoned were turned against them, hastening their departure and increasing the confusion among the troops facing south behind the now useless breastworks they had constructed with such care. These last took their cue from them and began to pull out too, in rapid succession from right to left down the long line of intrenchments, swelling the throng rushing eastward along the road. Within 20 minutes of the opening shows, Howard’s flank division had gone out of military existence, converted that quickly from organisation to mob. The adjoining division was sudden to follow the example set. Not even the sight of the corps commander himself, on horseback near Wilderness Church, breasting the surge of retreaters up the turnpike and clamping a stand of abandoned colors under the stump of his amputated arm while attempting to control the skittish horse with the other, served to end or even to slow the rout. Bareheaded and with tears in his eyes, Howard was pleading with them to halt and form, halt and form, but they paid him no mind, evidently convinced that his distress, whether for the fate of his country or his career or both, took no precedence over their own distress for their very lives.

-Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative, Vol. 2

My God it is horrible. To think of it — 130,000 magnificient soldiers so cut to pieces by less than 60,000 half starved ragamuffins.

-Horace Greeley, on the Battle of Chancellorsville

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Mighty Accomplishments of Reading: Faulkner and Foote

I finished Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust and volume 2 of Shelby Foote’s Civil War yesterday. A conicidence, really, since I have been plodding through volume 2 of Foote for something like nine months.

Intruder did not disappoint, but neither will it go down on my list of favorite Faulkner. It’s not an easy read, and I’m not sure the payoff is as big as Faulkner’s other really difficult reads (i.e. The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!) although I will acknowledge that maybe there’s substance to it that I missed that would multiply my appreciation of the book. I must remember to use my brother’s JSTOR password to cruise some articles about it and see what’s there to grapple with.

The quote about Pickett’s charge that I cited the other day, and indeed that whole passage of the book about the eternal Is of the past and all time, was, of course, magnificent. And certainly the book wrestled fiercely with the South’s complicated race issues, but did it do so in a way that was fundamentally different from any of Faulkner’s other race-focused books? I guess so–the perspective of a teenage boy and his relationship to an older black man is certainly a different lens through which to examine race in the South than we get in, say, Light in August. Light tackles the question of what is race and why is it so fucking important through (in part at least) the racially ambiguous Joe Christmas, whereas Intruder focuses on this white teenager who has inherited the South’s racial legacy and no matter what he does–even saving Lucas Beauchamp’s life–he has absolutely no chance of getting out of it.

I want to give some thought to the differences between the Chick Mallison/Lucas Beauchamp relationship in Intruder and the Lucius Priest/Ned McCaslin relationship in The Reivers. Just a thought.

Foote almost needs no commentary. I started out strong with volume 2 (I read volume 1 last year over the course of 5 or 6 weeks), but I was so emotionally exhausted by the chapter about Gettysburg (“The Stars in Their Courses,” which is also published as a standalone book) that for the most part I could only half-heartedly engage with the rest of the volume (other than a brief afternoon of riveting excitement as I read about Chickamauga). I wrote about Gettysburg a few weeks ago on its anniversary so I won’t tread that ground again here (although to be honest, I feel as if I will always be treading that ground) except to say that the battle has a profound and glorious and sad hold over me, and Foote’s account of it is masterfully crafted. I hope to pick the momentum back up through volume 3.

Last night after I got off the bus (the bus on which I finished Foote and Faulkner) I was locked out of my house, so I sat on the steps for awhile getting started with Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter, which was nice to read on the front porch on a hot July evening, even in Chicago. I like it, and whatever else I get out of it, I will probably spend some time mulling over how it compares and contrasts with Agee’s A Death in the Family, which I read earlier this year.

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The High Water Mark

Right about now, 149 years ago, more than 12,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of General Robert E. Lee set off across three-quarters of a mile of open field in Pennsylvania, just south of the town of Gettysburg, in a desperate attempt to break the Union line.

The Rebels advanced under withering artillery and musket fire from their front and flanks, but were not turned until after their charge reached the Union line and they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. They suffered greater than 50% casualties.

This moment will forever hold me in its grip, and I’ll be damned if I really know why. But William Faulkner spelled it out to an extent in Intruder in the Dust:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.

And apparently that instant is there for Southern boys thirty-three years old, too, because it is there for me right now. Every time I read an account of the battle. Every time I watch Gettysburg. Every time I even think about it, I find myself crossing my fingers and whispering, maybe this time it will work. Maybe this time we will win. I don’t know if I can really explain it to you any more clearly if it’s not lodged into your psyche the way it is lodged into mine. I think its something that has to be felt: brave and sad, hopeful and hopeless.

But whether you understand it or not, I do, and so I salute the heroes who fell on that day.

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New Ink: Old Blue Light

“Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees” on the inside of my left arm. It’s still red because the picture was taken fairly soon after I got it.

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When The Children Cry

When I hear this song, I think about my beautiful kids, and I get choked up. I hope they know how much I love them.

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Ares In Puerto Rico

A couple of years ago when I was in the Army National Guard, we flew down to Puerto Rico for an excellent weekend of training that culminated in a live-fire exercise.

Before my squad ran through the live-fire exercise, we were (as is typical) sitting around our rucksacks, taking care of our equipment, sleeping, and generally bullshitting. Since our turn on the lane was coming up, I pulled out my white portable altar-cloth, lit a candle, and prayed to Ares. My pagan-friendly classics-major buddy joined in while our Christian platoon leader looked on. We sacrificed a bag of M&Ms from an MRE to the Lord of War, and at the end, I handed one of the M&Msto the PL. He got all nervous and said “If I eat this, will it make me pagan?” I told him that was ultimately up to him. So he ate it. Big shocker, it did not “make him pagan…”

The live-fire exercise was brutal, but it went well and nobody got hurt. The weather was dry and everything pretty much burst into flame. By “everything” I mean an entire mountain. I’m not going to lie; it was completely awesome.

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Ares, And What Paganism Is All About

Paganism is about honoring the fundamental aspects of authentic human experience. It’s about looking at the parts of existence that are terrifying and overwhelming and trying to figure out what they mean: things like birth, death, sex, war, love, art, and even the powerful, capricious, and unpredictable forces of the natural world. The gods give rise to these essential facets of human experience (and/or are themselves born from them), and to deny one or more of the gods because there is no place in your life or your worldview or your schema for the things they represent is to deny a fundamental part of who you are.

War is a part of being human. It may be ugly, brutal, and horrifying, but it is omnipresent. To be truly human is to know war. To reject Ares because you reject war is to reject a part of what it means to be you. And to reject Ares because you reject war means also rejecting warlike aspects of many of the other gods as well: Athena, Aphrodite, Zeus, Dionyus just off the top of my head.

Who would Ares be without war? A god of mental conflict? A god of physical exertion? We already have those gods. Ares is a god of a lot of things, and there are a lot of lenses through which to view Ares, but he is primarily a god of war. Trying to edit the war out of Ares is like trying to edit the sex out of Aphrodite. I don’t know what you’re left with, but it isn’t the real deal. That kind of selective approach to the gods is apparently pretty popular among neopagans, but I honestly don’t think it’s a road that is going to take you anywhere worth being.

Think about it: the soldier knows both war and peace, but the pacifist tries to know only peace. The pacifist is rejecting an entire part of human existence because it does not suit him or her. Whether that’s a thing worth doing, or a thing we should be doing, is not actually the issue. But I would maintain that trying to edit human existence to remove the bits we don’t like is just not what any kind of real paganism is about. Christianity does that, with its vision of a new heaven and a new earth. Not paganism.

I also don’t think, with regards to Ares, that it’s a question of whether violence is necessary or justified, but merely whether it is an essential facet of human existence. Violence IS. War IS. We can play at quasi-Christianity if we want and imagine a utopia where violence no longer exists, but even in Christianity that requires massive divine intervention. The overwhelming, unanimous weight of human history tells us in no uncertain terms and with no exceptions that war and violence are fundamentally a part of the human condition.

Whether or not this reality is morally acceptable is a question that is, in my opinion, not even on paganism’s radar. Violence is a part of human reality, and paganism is about how we honor and respond to human reality. The ethics of paganism ask not whether a violent society is morally acceptable, but instead ask “given that violence and war exist as a part of the human condition, how do you respond virtuously?”

Look to the epics, the philosophers, and the myths. Look to the maxims. Tell me what the answer is. The world is violent–we honor that when we honor Ares. The question is how you respond with virtue when presented with that violence, whether you’re a kid in the hall at school getting beaten up by bullies, a young man who just got his draft notice, or a parent whose family is threatened.

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Interfaith Marriage: Respecting Each Others’ Beliefs

One of the ways my beautiful and sexy wife and I make our interfaith marriage work is by remaining respectful of each others’ beliefs. For example, I don’t mock Jesus or Christianity, and I teach my kids what Christianity and the Bible are about. In return, when my son reads books about the Civil War, my wife explains to him that the Confederacy was not “the bad guys,” and that, while slavery was one of the major issues, not everyone agrees that it’s what the War was really fought over.

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Ares Is…

Zeus is our Heavenly Father, but let’s face it: most of us have shitty relationships with our fathers, and that can carry over into our relationships with our Heavenly Father.

It’s alright though, ’cause we’ve got Ares.

Ares is the older brother who tells you all about girls and the real deal about sex, who turns you on to heavy metal and cars and gives you your first beer and your first cigarette.  But he expects you to keep your cool, to be tough, to roll with the punches and not to be a mama’s boy.

Ares is the upperclassman you respect and admire, who lets you be one of the guys, who shows you how to tie a tie and button your cuffs, who makes you feel accepted and doesn’t treat you like a dumb kid. But he expects you to do the right thing, to study hard, to treat girls well, and to show respect and earn the respect of everyone around you.

Ares is the uncle who takes you camping and shows you how to build a fire, to hunt and fish, to shoot a rifle and take care of yourself.  But he expects you to do hard things, to not complain or whine, to learn fast, to try hard and to tough it out when things get shitty.

Ares is the team captain who gives his all, who holds the team together and who understands exactly what you’re going through because he is right in the middle of it too.  But he expects you to train hard, to play hard, to keep your head in the game, to take care of your teammates, and to win.  

Ares is the squad leader who laughs with you, drinks with you, teaches you to be a warrior, and leads you into battle.  But he expects you to fight hard, to have integrity, to have courage and a good attitude, to take care of your battle buddies, and to kill every last one of the enemy motherfuckers.   He does his damnedest to make sure you make it back home, but he makes damn sure you are never forgotten when you don’t.

Just because you’re born with a penis doesn’t mean you know how to be a man. Don’t worry; Ares will show you.

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