Quick: if you could bring back any Civil War hero as your boyfriend, who would it be?!

(You’ve got to answer quickly if you want to answer honestly!)

Me?

My Civil War boyfriend would be Joshua Chamberlain. Obviously.

I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong. I love him for way more than just his sweet ‘stache. That’s only part of it.

Joshua Chamberlain commanded the Union’s Twentieth Maine Regiment and defended his position at Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. But rewind a little bit and you’ll find that this brilliant, brave, and selfless military man started off as a humble professor from the state of Maine who volunteered for the Union Army and then worked his way up to command his regiment, despite being offered command from the get-go– you see, it was more important to him that he learn the ropes and do things properly than it was to feed his ego and be in command. Swoon, right?

Grad school was full of ups and downs (and valleys and trenches…), but for certain, one of the best parts of the whole 6 years was the weekend I had the opportunity to go to Gettysburg and stay a weekend at a local bed and breakfast with Seth and my parents. It was… heaven.

Ok… it was heaven for me. I may have overdone it on the history cray cray by forcing mi familia  to listen to the entire guided CD as we drove our way through the historic battle grounds. I also made them stop at ev-er-y-thing. I couldn’t help it!

They humored me for most of the day, and really let me take my time when we finally made it to Little Round Top… and to the monument to the Twentieth Maine.

The names of all of the brave men who defended that hill “at all hazard” were listed on the other side.

It was unreal to be there. To see the hill the men charged down with bayonets fixed after running out of ammunition. (They freaking ran out of ammunition and charged at the other guys with knives on a stick!) To imagine the chaos, the bravery, the courage, the fear, the utter insanity of that day.

Then, no joke, just to really hammer the point home, I felt a sharp pain in my foot and when I looked down there was a FREAKING BEE stuck in my toe by its stinger and I literally had to pull it out of my foot.

Ok, that was actually on Big Round Top overlooking Devil’s Den, but my mind was still on Chamberlain and Little Round Top all the while.

After my Chamberlain experience, my parents and Seth humored me once more through Devil’s Den, the orchard, and the wheat field before they’d really just had enough. We kind of skipped through to the fish hook at the end of the line and then headed back to the Keystone. I got to see Little Round Top– that was enough for me.

Joshua Chamberlain survived the war and went on to achieve great things, including serving as the governor of Maine for several years. And he had a wife named Fanny, but that was all whatevs.

(Kidding, I’m sure she was absolutely lovely.)

While I was reading the Shaara Civil War trilogy that I’ve told you all so much about, I pretty much talked about it non-stop (yes, even more than I’m talking about it here). It was actually my friend Tammy, who knows a lot about everything (literally everything, PhD-educated neuroscientist who has devoted her current life to the care of soldiers returning from war with traumatic brain injury, oh and she also installed the putting green at the White House and developed the science curriculum for her son’s middle school… everything) who actually pointed out that Joshua Chamberlain was totally my Civil War boyfriend. I had to acknowledge the truth in it. A crush on a historical figure? Weird. But I can get on board with that.

Despite all of that, my real live, present day boyfriend… the one who humored me not just through Gettysburg tour, but through all of grad school and beyond… was the real deal and still is to this day.

That’s us together in Gettysburg– do you see him humoring me? So ridiculously much? He doesn’t necessarily get my passions (as usual, read: obsessions) and I don’t necessarily get his (but I’m cool with a 70″ xbox-devoted TV in my basement), but we certainly appreciate those things about each other. What’s life without some passion, after all?

In my life, I’ve had lots of celebrity crushes… no doubt, so have you. And I’m sure we can all agree on Colin Firth, amIright? But Joshua Chamberlain. He’s my weird one. And now you know.

So I bring it back to the original question:

Who’s your Civil War boyfriend???

You know the scene in Love Actually when Mark confesses his love to Juliet? The Juliet that is married to his best friend? He silently tells Juliet with hand-written signs that to him, she is perfect, and that he will love her for always. And then he walks away. And he says, “Enough. Enough now.” And my heart breaks– every time. Unrequited love, sigh. But at least it was over. Mark said what he needed to say and it was over. Because it’s a movie and not real, what happens after that truly does not matter, but it is my sincere hope that he found another true love; someone who loved him back in the same exact way.

But that’s not my point. Resolution is.

Oh my… how is she ever going to get to Appomattox?

I will. Don’t worry.

I got really into the Civil War for a while. I mean, I still think it’s completely fascinating, but for a while there I was like really far gone. (I don’t have interests per se, I have obsessions.)

My cousin Spruce recommended the Jeff and Michael Shaara father-son Civil War trilogy to me one time. I picked it up and couldn’t put it down. Then I couldn’t get it out of my head. Then I went to Gettysburg and was just floored. Absolutely in awe of what that time, that place, that horrific war must have been like. I can’t even imagine… but I try. And scenes tumble around in my brain pretty frequently.

One of the most striking things about my obsession was my complete 180 regarding General Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the confederate forces. Let me explain.

Twice upon a time, long before graduate school, I visited Arlington National Cemetery and learned about the yellow-ish house on the hill that had belonged to Robert E. Lee and his family before the Civil War. I knew little about Lee at the time, except that he’d commanded the Confederate Army, and in my black and white world, that was enough.

Robert E. Lee was a bad man and he deserved to have his land taken away. Better yet, he deserved to have it stand as a symbol of the horrors he wrought– I thought of Arlington National Cemetery as a sort of personal punishment for Lee as a result of his involvement with the Confederacy.

Oy, not so. Not so at all.

Granted, the Shaara trilogy is technically historical fiction, so many of the scenes are imagined, but it’s all based as much as possible in fact, and I learned that Lee was not nearly as one-dimensional, and definitely not as evil, as I had always pictured.

Lee was sick and tired before the war even started. Literally sick (cardiac issues, I believe) and tired of fighting in war after war. He was offered command of the Union Army first, but declined on account of his familial roots in the south and later took up command of the Confederate Army.

The battle details get somewhat fuzzy for me, I’m not good with the names and the dates and the details, but the feelings really stuck with me– the struggle, the futility, the exhaustion. Lee was absolutely sad. He did not like killing and he did not like ordering his men to their death. Yet, he was brilliant at it. And he did it all out of a sense of duty and honor and commitment, the likes of which was unparalleled. I think Lincoln even knew that, and I truly don’t think he held it against Lee personally.

As time wore on and on and the Confederate Army became more and more desperate for resources of every type, including and perhaps most importantly able-bodied men, surrender became inevitable. From what I understand, surrender was inevitable for a while and I can only imagine how painful it must have been for Lee to carry on knowing that every death past that point was for naught. So that brings us to my favorite scene: The surrender of General Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union Army, at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

Can you even imagine the relief? To know that it’s finally, truly, really over. I have to believe that even though it was surrender and not victory, it was probably past the point of even mattering. All that mattered was that it was over.

Sometimes, just seeing something out, getting to the end, is enough, no matter the outcome.

Both Lee and Grant handled surrender, defeat, and victory incredibly gracefully, in my opinion. I can only imagine the relief they both must have felt at that moment, just to know that the endless fighting could stop.

Have you seen the movie Lincoln? You should– it’s really good. It’s not actually about the Civil War, but rather about Lincoln’s efforts to get the 13th Amendment through Congress. Even though that’s the case, it’s practically impossible to not show the surrender of General Lee at the Appomattox Courthouse before showing the assassination of Lincoln (a mere 5 days later) and that is another respect in which the movie truly does not disappoint– it’s my favorite scene of the whole movie, even though it’s minor. I thought they did such a nice job of capturing the simplicity of the end and the relief felt by everyone.

Really, I’m not trying to relate anything in my life to that moment at Appomattox. And the parallel between the final moments of the Civil War and that scene in Love Actually is weak. But A is actually for Appomattox, and I got there, like I said.

Ladies and gentlemen: The Letter A.