Sunday, January 24, 2016

CIVIL WAR: The art of conversation

At dinner on Monday night the Young Relative mentioned he had a midterm approaching for his Civil War class. Immediately we began peppering him with questions about that tragic, bloody chapter of American history, all of which he answered correctly. Fort Sumter, Emancipation Proclamation, Jefferson Davis: check, check, check. I thought I would catch him on where Lincoln's assassination took place, but he knew it. (I considered asking for the play name, but realized I wasn't 100 percent sure of it myself.)
After that we started talking about the war more generally. My brother the engineer said he'd always marveled at the complexity of managing the multiple supply lines for an army: food, ammo, communications, medical supplies. We discussed how radically different history might have been had cell phones been around, and a pilot at the table mentioned that the first use of aircraft in warfare was to gain intelligence. I mentioned an article I'd read recently saying that even with modern medicine, Lincoln's gunshot wound would have been fatal.
Of course, then this learned discussion veered to an unfortunate incident involving some Patton middle-schoolers, an errant ping-pong paddle and a gaping hole in the wall, and howls of laughter took over our table.

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