
The American civil war then and now – interactive - yitchelle
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/ng-interactive/2015/jun/22/american-civil-war-photography-interactive
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kissickas
Great content, but the auto-change on scroll was annoying. They should have at
least implemented a small delay.

Anyone know why the trees at Antietam Dunker's Church appear to have shrunk?
Or is that just a trick of the lens? I find the trees to be the most
interesting part of these comparisons. The Brompton oak is beautiful.

~~~
jbattle
They are almost certainly new trees - the originals having been cut down in
the decades after the battle. I'm not sure when the programs started, but I
know a lot of the battlefields have been intentionally restoring tree lines to
their original appearance at many of the battlefields - although this is of
course going to be a decades-long process.

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rcarrigan87
This is really well done. I only wish they had a little more historical
explanation to go with each photo.

I'm not sure if it was the Guardian, but there was a WWII article where they
did a similar photo overlay effect. I can't find it. Anyone remember this?

~~~
ptaipale
I suppose you mean this one from The Atlantic:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/scenes-from-d-
day-t...](http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/scenes-from-d-day-then-and-
now/100752/)

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Lorento
History really distorts things. Do we have to wait 200 years to see fights
with ISIS in a similar "noble tragedy" kind of light, where there are no clear
baddies and nobody's assigned blame for the killings?

Maybe some of those dead people were "baddies" fighting for something we don't
believe in anymore? In that case, surely we should be celebrating the fact
that they died. If not, then maybe we should be complaining about the violent
people who killed them? It's not a natural disaster where nobody wants it to
happen. Soldiers actively fought for some purpose or other that we presumably
either accept or not today.

~~~
fennecfoxen
In the case of the American Civil War, we have ample context in these times to
hold nuanced understandings of the matter.

The Confederate army was comprised of men, many of whom died defending their
homeland from what they perceived to be the aggression of an imperialistic
outside force determined to impose an alien set of values on their society,
obliterating their capacity for self-determination. The sad fact that these
men were commonly quite racist and supported the oppression other human beings
(the slaves) does not erase that, and does not mean their deaths met in war
were a form of high Justice.

We have been gifted with a powerful legacy, the triumph of the Union and the
cause of freedom, and it would be an abuse of that legacy to trivialize the
matter. Instead, if we choose to invest the death of one of an enlisted
Confederate army private with dignity and respect, one of the "baddies", we
are exercising the same respect for our common humanity that impelled our
forefathers to sacrifice their lives lifting the slaves out of slavery to
begin with.

~~~
Frondo
I'm unwilling to separate out "they were defending their values" from "their
values included chattel slavery". I find nothing noble in holding values dear
that are so wrong.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Well, no, and the point isn't to excuse them or call them noble for that, the
point is that it's an exercise of _our_ values to say that all men have
dignity, and that even if we're fighting them it's not much better to
_dehumanize_ people for their values than it is for their race.

I mean, what do you think of people who claim we should blow up all the
Muslims because they have inferior values? Little bit monstrous of them,
right? Or take the Reformation writ large, nations alternately executing
Papists and Protestants.

~~~
Frondo
I'm ok with acknowledging the humanity of, but not the dignity of, a group of
people who willingly, emphatically, repeatedly worked to deny others of their
basic human rights.

We see words like "heritage" thrown around a lot with respect to the south. I
like to remember what that heritage is:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-
thi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-
war-was-over/396482/)

