Confederate memorial Day at Lexington Cemetery

It is early June. Like many grandparents, we are on the road for our granddaughter’s high school graduation. Our family is scattered, and our journey is to Lexington, Kentucky, one of our favorite destinations -especially if it coincides with the horse races at Keeneland (which we missed in April). This is the true heart of the Blue Grass, home to the horse-breeding and -racing culture. But silks and saddles are not the reason for our visit. It is to be a round of heart- warming celebrations as we launch another member of our tribe into the big pond of adulthood.

With her round of parties and many relatives on hand, our granddaughter hopefully will not miss us when we slip away and take a jaunt around the city. Checking out Gratz Park, which is surrounded by beautifully kept nineteenth century homes, we wander into antique shops and enjoy lunch in an old church- turned- restaurant.

This is a modern city, yet still defined by many traditions: horse racing, college life (the University of Kentucky is here, as is Transylvania University), basketball and bourbon.  And it is an old city that showcases its human legends, as well as its equine ones. Many streets are named for derby winners.  Daniel Boone, the archetypical frontiersman, and statesman Henry Clay, who helped forestall the Civil War for a decade -and Adolph Rupp, arguably the greatest of all collegiate basketball coaches-are all memorialized here. It is also home to one of the most beautiful of city cemeteries.

Lexington Cemetery is also an arboretum.  Light and shade shift, dramatizing and concealing vignettes of life and history.   It is a Saturday. The cemetery is virtually empty of visitors, so we are surprised to come upon a gathering of Sons of Confederate Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy observing Confederate Memorial Day. Kentucky was not part of the confederacy. It was divided on issues of slavery and union, a border state torn between two versions of America. The focus of the day’s event is the re-dedication of a relocated statue of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan mounted on his stallion.  The relocation of this statue from very visible public space downtown to this secluded spot occurred, as in many cities across the south, came after contentious discussions about slavery, race and ultimately the value and meaning of history.

There is the usual color guard, reenactors in confederate uniforms, paradoxically carrying both the confederate battle flag as well as the United States national flag. And, a poetry reading by a lady dressed in brilliant blue sadly told of southern heroism and defeat. A powerful speech by a forceful speaker, a burly spokesman in suit and tie, replenishes the well of honor for those who sacrificed. A nearby stone tablet lists those confederate dead who rest there. To our surprise it lists an ancestor of native Kentuckian, Karen, my wife . On the next grassy rise, an army of crosses march beneath a large American flag to recall the federal dead. In the ceremony there is no partisan rallying cry, only the quiet solemnity of those for whom this is a sacrament.

I am from Georgia and my family stories are littered with confederate dead. That is ultimately because my families fled desperate circumstances in England and Ireland to settle in the southern colonies where protestants were welcome and Catholics-and even Anglicans-often were not. Generations have passed, their fates mostly determined by stern geography and unrelenting climate. They were people of little political consequence and history records none of their feelings about secession or the war, but they would suffer for generations from defeat.  I was not there. I can not claim the honor or accept any dishonor that may attach to their cause. My parents and grandparents felt unyielding poverty and so paid for the choices of their grandparents-if indeed they had anything to do with secession. The current national addiction to Ancestry.com may make Civil War ancestors easy to find, but family charts explain little about circumstances or choices-much less the larger forces of history.

The temperature rises with the afternoon sun, the more formally dressed participants perspire, as do we. The little entourage breaks into smaller groups to say goodbye.  The equestrian statue of a general erected in a park for the dead seems appropriate, standing amidst so many tombstones. The very number of markers brings the general’s statue down to size. He was only a part—like all the others-of a historical tragedy that can never be undone.  Of course, history is always being re-written. To deny or erase it may serve the immediate needs of some or even help to heal the wronged, but the search for meaning in the past will continue with or without them.  The only certainty is that new generations will ask new questions of the past and the answers will be unsettling as well as inspiring. History is hard work and not for the faint of heart.