Horses and Drums and Stuffed Carnivores

There are two versions of the Saint-Gaudens Shaw Memorial. One is in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. . The other is in the Boston Commons--after all, Captain Shaw's black regiment was organized in Massachusetts, before going south to fight in the Civil War. Although I lived in Boston for sixteen years and visited the Commons dozens of times, I have no memory of ever actually looking at it. The Civil War is a very distant, long-forgotten rumble, if you live up north. But when we moved to Washington, D.C. in 2002, that war was with us.

On many weekends we took Simon to the National Gallery: it was free, you could bring a stroller, the cafeteria served sushi for us and fries for the stinkernoodle--a perfect outing. The Saint-Gaudens is off to the left near one of the main entrances. Often, we didn't get to see much of anything else. Simon was four. He loved that sculpture. “Horses and Drums,” he named it. Again and again, George and I would point out the soldier's caps, their bed-rolls, weapons, how young they are, how serious their sad faces—even the horse seems worried. They are going off to war. Overhead, a sleepy and not particularly reassuring angel keeps vigil.

“Don't touch!” the guard would invariably yell, not knowing what to do with this little white boy who showed up every couple of weeks and always got too close, wanting to get into the sculpture, maybe even march away with Shaw's Mighty 54th regiment .

“M'am, I cannot tell you this again--you need to get your boy to step back!”

If it was my job to guard the Saint-Gaudens, I, too, would feel protective. Sometimes, I would sit on the bench and just look at it—the scale of it alone knocks your breath out—while Simon scampered around in front of it counting bed-rolls, caps, weapons. Within two months of leaving Boston, more than half of the soldiers, including Shaw, would be dead. We didn't mention this to Simon, but George and I thought about it. Simon, in turn, thought of bed-rolls and canteens. He wanted to try sleeping on one and drinking from the other. He wished for a drum, a gun, and maybe a real horse—a pony would do. At four, war is full of thrilling danger and exciting possibilities.

Now Simon is eleven. The threatening thunder of war has been a part of our readings from the beginning of this school-year. Many of the Founding Fathers were against slavery, even Jefferson who owned many. The South, and all its representatives were for it, and for states that were strong and independent—they feared a central government that would tell them what to do, like forcing them to end slavery. In the meantime, tobacco and cotton made the South rich and reshaped the economy of the world. The pastry shops in England were full of sweet cakes made with Caribbean sugar. And all over England, rooms were so thick with tobacco smoke that many of us in the twenty-first century would have had to step outside to vomit. But back then, with a piece of cake in hand and a pipe between their lips, who was going to promote abolitionism?

Studying slavery and the Civil War is the first time Simon has had to deal with complexity in a sustained manner. No longer can he group historical figures into just “bad” and “good.” Jefferson was a slave-owner, but he wrote a great Declaration of Independence, and he was a terrific president. Andrew Jackson was a war hero, even though he owned over 400 slaves by the end of his life.

* * *

One day last week, a buddy of Simon's came to spend the afternoon with us. His mother and I had made a deal—the buddy could come over if he was willing to do some work with us.

“No biggie,” said the friend, as he stepped into my car at noon when I picked him up.

“Great,” I said. “We'll talk about the Civil War.”

“I know everything about the Civil War,” he said, buckling himself in. He just turned eleven. “You know, Ulysses S. Grant became president after the war.”

“No,” said Simon, my little historical know-it-all. “Johnson became president when Lincoln was shot. After that came that guy—Ulysses S. Grant.” Simon has been looking ahead in the president biographies we have on the shelf, and memorizing a chart of all the presidents that hangs on the wall.

“You're right,” said the friend, “but you know what? I know how Lincoln was shot.”

“How?” I ask. In the back-seat, both boys have taken our their Nintendo's and have buried their faces in the screens.

Simon's friend, not one to lift his face once a screen is in front of him, looks up and our eyes meet in the rear-view mirror: “Well, he was shot right in the ear—right inside it.” He lifts his index to his ear to show me. “First, he lost his hearing, so he couldn't hear anymore. Then the bullet moved into his brain, so he couldn't move his body. Then he couldn't talk or remember anything—not even the Civil War. It took many hours to die. He suffered, but I think he was lucky because he couldn't even feel it--that's how the brain works. That's how he died.”

“I didn't know Lincoln was shot right in the ear,” I say. (I was pretty sure he wasn't—I thought it was a shot to the back of the head—but I keep mum.) “Thank's man, for telling me.”

The blow-by-blow is so imaginative and empathic, I find myself weaving the car through the streets of another beautiful day in Miami thinking of how deeply that dark and deadly war affects children this age. Simon's buddy had moved right into Lincoln's brain, trying to fathom what his last hours were like.

At the house, I attempt to establish how much the kids already know before I decide what I might teach them. Simon's friend has recently done a unit on the Civil War as part of his homeschooling curriculum. Simon, in turn, has spent hours looking at educational videos and listening to historical audiobooks.

To my amazement, these two pip-squeaks know everything that matters: why the war started, who the major players were, the biggest battles, complicated words and concepts like emancipation, abolitionist, the triangle trade. And they know so much more.

The friend explains to us that the war had to happen because the South needed slavery for its “economy to be profitable. They couldn't make a profit without free labor, you know.”

Simon, in turn, explains that when the war began, Abraham Lincoln asked Garibaldi to lead the Union forces. Garibaldi refused because early in the war Lincoln only “wanted to keep the states together; he was sort of a big coward in the beginning and wouldn't make the war a war to end slavery and all that stuff. Lincoln changed his mind later, but by then Garibaldi was busy.” (Simon learned about Garibaldi from George.)

“Well, you guys, ” I say, “I'm having trouble finding something you don't already know. How about the Union's balloon corps? If you were in a war and you had hot air balloons, a new technology back then, how would you use them?” So we sit on the couch and we read a story about Thaddeus Lowe and the Union Balloon Corps.

I could write a few paragraphs about how the boys know so much because they are home-educated. But the truth is both kids have an interest in history and have history geeks for parents—they would be exposed to this material whether they sat in a regular classroom or not.

They know so much about this topic because--on their own-- they've made an effort to master the material, to make sense of it, letting the facts, stories, and details marinate in their minds. They wonder how Lincoln died. They perseverate about poor decisions, and about concepts like coward and war hero. Unlike the many religious and territorial wars in Europe they've read about for world history, something real and comprehensible is at stake here. Slavery had to end.

I suggest they watch the short videos on brainpop about the Civil War. Simon knows how to access the site on his own, so I leave the guys alone for a few minutes with my lap-top. When I return to the living room, they've piled the couch full of stuffed animals. The friend is sprawled on top of them and has a stuffed shark in his arms. Sitting at the far end of the sofa is Simon, hugging his favorite polar bear in one arm and cradling the laptop in the other, turning it so his friend can see. I'm reminded that when Simon was younger, he once explained to me that when he gets sad or scared, he likes to "cuddle" with his "stuffed carnivores."

"They protect me.”

I'd been considering telling them of the 620,000 dead soldiers and the indeterminate number of civilian casulaties, more dead than in all the other wars America has fought put together. I want to tell them about the fields at Antietam, how they were covered ankle-deep in blood. I want to tell them about the Gatling gun and how it mowed down men and horses--I've been spending my evenings reading about the bloodshed. But seeing the boys on the couch, they seem so very young. And they know too much already. Time for a break. I remember I have some cones in the cabinet and ice-cream in the freezer.

I'm not much of a believer, but please, dear God, let these boys live their lives all the way through.

Over ice-cream cones, I make some decisions. We'll see the Shaw Memorial again--soon, either in Boston or D.C. We'll try to get to Gettysburg this year. Maybe next summer, when Simon is a little older, we'll open up a folding table and work our way through all the Civil War battles. We'll buy some tin or plastic soldiers, lots of them. We'll talk of military strategy. We'll talk of the dead.

Click on the link to go to the National Gallery website and learn more about the Shaw Memorial .