Fort Negley
05 May 2005Huh, somehow I missed this, but they re-opened Fort Negley to the public last year. They even got a troupe (ha!) of civil war re-enacters to come out. That’s pretty cool, I’ll have to go check it out one of these days, seeing as how it’s right down the road from me. One side of my personality that gets little attention or expression is that I am enamored with local history. The result is that I really like local history, but I know nothing about it.
As an aside here: War re-enactments are one thing I just really do not get at all. I find it incredibly creepy. Here we have war, arguably the most vile plague ever foisted on mankind, and then we’ve got these people willingly investing time and money to re-enact it. I mean, don’t we have enough actual, real war still going on in the world that they can’t just, like, pick one and take a tour? Do we really need to fake it? It’s not like it’s a long-vanished artifact. Maybe some day when we’ve finally vanquished the nuisance of war, we can hold these solemn re-enactments and then followup with emotional speeches about how we must NEVER FORGET. But until then, it’s just a little damn weird, if you ask me.
And oddly, the civil war seems to be the most popular choice, despite being one of the least glorious and most tragic wars I can think of in our nation’s history.
I have never seen a war re-enactment in person, but I imagine it must impose a striking sense of surreality watching men willingly re-enact such mind-bogglingly horrific events. Maybe in some twisted way it highlights that senselessness, and that’s the point – to make you realize the folly of it all.
On the other hand, maybe it’s all just a bunch of hyper-violent macho cosplay.