T.S. Elloitt wrote that “April is the cruelest month of all.”
In American history, April has its place as the marker of historic events. In April 1775 Paul Revere rode to Lexington and Concord to warn of the British column headed that way. The fight that ensued along the battle road was the spark that led to the American Revolution.
An even more auspicious but lesser-known event took place on April 2, 1865. The Civil War that confirmed our nationality and ended slavery was drawing to a close. After nine months in the trenches outside of Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate pickets could hear a sound that did not augur well for their rebellion.
Out in the misty darkness 14,000 Union troops were maneuvering for an attack on the western end of a line that stretched for 37 miles. For nine months as Grant had fought to get around his flank, Lee had to stretch his diminished army like a rubber band that was at the point of snapping.
Out in front of the Union troops that morning was the Vermont Brigade. And at their head was a 20-year-old captain, Charles Gould. Gould had lied about his age when he enlisted at age 16. He was poised to be the first man to enter the rebel trenches. Captain Gould was bayonetted and struck by a sword. He was rescued as his troops poured over the parapet and sent the Army of Northern Virginia reeling away towards Appomattox Courthouse and final surrender.
Our greatest war was drawing to a close. It was not always a popular war and its stated aims changed over time. In the beginning there was little sympathy in the North for abolition. Men signed up to fight to preserve the Union. But over time the strategic war aims morphed into a commitment to the destruction of the largest slave system the world had ever known.
That was not an easy transition given the inherent racism that existed in the North as well as the South. But it happened because of the words and leadership of the one man who could raise the purpose of the struggle from a military victory to a moral obligation.
Rarely in human history has a leader equaled Abraham Lincoln’s ability to lay out the reasons and goals for the war as “a new birth of freedom.” And even more unusual was his compassion for a defeated enemy “with malice towards none, and charity for all.”
This April we are engaged in something that feels like a war, although our government hesitates to call it that. Are we fighting to free the Iranian people? Is it all about the threat of a nuclear weapon? Will we stay the course until the Strait of Hormuz is open again? Is there any larger purpose for the destruction than the sheer application of power and the joy of “blowing stuff up?”
The president made no attempt to address these questions before the war began, and he gave at best a half-hearted justification one month into it. He cannot address this war as Lincoln did because he is not Lincoln. He shares none of his wisdom or empathy and he has no moral clarity for his decisions. We are left to watch a remote video game that is nonetheless killing real people as our allies stand aside.
Maybe April is the cruelest month of all.
David Parrella lives in Buckland.