Gettysburg: Don't forget what each side was fighting for and against

Day Four and the final day of our experience at Gettysburg National Military Park and The Dude and I spent some reflective moments at sunset near the monument commemorating the courage of the First Minnesota Regiment.

The First Minnesota helped General Winfield S. Hancock hold the Union line against advancing Confederate soldiers. Outnumbered three or four to one, the First Minnesota fought the Confederates at close range over 300 yards of open ground near Cemetery Ridge.

Minnesota was the first state to organize a volunteer regiment and heed President Lincoln's call to arms to preserve the Union.

Eventually, 25,000 Minnesotans would serve half of the state's male population during the Civil War. 2,500 Minnesotans would give their life in the service of the United States. This after having only been a state for three years before the outbreak of the Civil War.

As The Dude and I begin our journey this morning to Antietam National Battlefield and Manassas National Battlefield Park, I have found myself reflecting a great deal on the bitter divide in this country on matters great and small.

I have also thought about the seditious and treasonous actions of the Confederates, their leaders, and the community that supported them during the Civil War. There was no honor or "way of life" they were fighting for that wasn't intended to keep human beings forcibly enslaved to do their continued bidding. The "genteel" world of plantations hid the cruelty, viciousness, and lost lives of black men, women, and children. At the beginning, and the end, of every day of the Civil War, their fight was about protecting that institution, and they were willing to give their lives and those of their fellow citizens to preserve it.

The United States, and all it was founded upon, meant nothing to these states and the people who gathered up arms against it to preserve the institution of slavery and their "way of life."

I have also thought about those who used force and violence in attacking our nation's capital on January 6th. They came from states all across America -- the South, North, East, and West. As they brutalized police officers, intent on stopping the work of the duly elected representatives of the people of the United States, they had one thing on their mind, and that was to overthrow the government.

They were no more tourists than the rebel soldier who fought to overthrow the United States government. These were not peaceful warriors intent on being "heard" - they were intent on a rebellion, an insurrection, and engaged in treason and sedition.

We dishonor the sacrifices of the men and women who fought and died on these fields of battle to preserve the United States by diminishing the actions of those who attacked our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021. What they did on that day was no different than what confederate soldiers and officers wished to do on July 11-12, 1864, by attempting to invade Washington, D.C.: Overthrow the United States government.

The only difference is that the men and women who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th actually got inside the city -- inside the capitol - inside the chambers -- inside the offices -- of the Congress of the United States of America.

Unlike rebel soldiers, they were within feet of capturing, holding hostages, and killing elected members of the U.S. House and Senate and effectively decapitating our government.

They had it within their power to do what years of a Civil War could not do: Overthrow the United States government.

As radical as that sounds, it is no more radical of a notion that men and women in 1861 had when they gathered as a seditious collection of people living on land fought and paid for by Revolutionary Soldier's blood and declared they would no longer be a part of the United States.

More than 620,000 dead Americans would be the fruits of their labor and desire to preserve their "way of life."

America lives today because of the courage, bravery, and willingness to overcome fear and terror of the men and women of the Union who gave their lives to stand up to those who wished to tear her down.