Laudator Temporis Acti

Theodore Roosevelt, letter to George Otto Trevelyan (January 1, 1908):

In Canada, for instance, Wolfe and Montcalm are equally national heroes now, because the English conquered the French and yet live in the country on terms of absolute equality with them, so that of necessity, if they are to have a common national tie, they must have as common heroes for both peoples the heroes of each people. So in a very striking fashion it is with us and the memories of the Civil War. My father's people were all Union men. My mother's brothers fought in the Confederate navy, one being an admiral therein, and the other firing the last gun fired by the Alabama before she sank. When I recently visited Vicksburg in Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis, I was greeted with just as much enthusiasm as if it had been Massachusetts or Ohio. I went out to the national park which commemorates the battle and siege and was shown around it by Stephen Lee, the present head of the Confederate veterans' organization, and had as guard of honor both ex-Confederate and ex-Union soldiers. After for many years talking about the fact that the deeds of valor shown by the men in gray and the men in blue are now the common heritage of all our people, those who talked and those who listened have now gradually grown first to believe with their minds, and then to feel with their hearts, the truth of what they have spoken.

99th Illinois Infantry Monument at Vicksburg, showing the name of my great-great-grandfather, Robert E. Gilleland, 2nd Lieutenant, 99th Regiment, Illinois Infantry, company I, from Illinois at Vicksburg. Published under Authority of an Act of the Forty-Fifth General Assembly (Chicago: Illinois-Vicksburg Military Park Commission, 1907), p. 274 (2nd panel from the bottom, at the left, 3rd name; click once or twice to enlarge): Some of my ancestors fought on the Confederate side as well.