Claire V. Bogdanos

EXCUSE ME, have you been following the current trend of live interviews of H.S. and University students by media sources questioning their knowledge of the American Civil War, 4/12/1861, Fort Sumpter ending at Appomatox Courthouse, 4/9/1865 ?  Hours of questions, total lack of facts and credulous answers from this totally ignorant segment of our population, a disgrace !  And we all pay the cost, taxes, grants, scholarships, government subsidies.  This was the war that took a minimum of  750,000 lives, dead soldiers, north, south, white, black !  Where was the concern for the men who faced Armageddon in that war ?  It was our first  Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who led the cause to preserve our union and who was murdered 6 days after the signing of the peace treaty at the war’s end by a prominent American stage actor.   “Sic semper tyrranus”,  shouted John Wilkes Booth as he leapt to the stage.  Who knew that we’d lose more men in that war than any other war we have fought to this date ?  Those men were lost more than 150 years ago.  Real Americans mark this tragic period with honor rolls and monuments throughout our nation without exception !  Lack of educational integrity robs our children of our country’s saga of the path to freedom.  The saddest part may be that the true missing ingredient today is intellectual curiosity !  How can we appreciate our victory without its factual history ?  This was a war to free the slaves, I ask you, did you know ?     Sincerely,   Claire B.