War

Personally, I have never found war to be terribly interesting.  As a concept it make so little sense to me. However, so much of history is illustrated by war.  This week we celebrate the anniversary of the end of the war that created the United States of America - the first in a series of American wars.

Newly renovated exhibit on the military history
of the Piatt family, Mac-A-Cheek Castle

Just as the history of a nation can be told (at least in part) through its wars, the history of a family can be told through its participation in those wars.  Jacob Piatt (paternal grandfather to brothers Abram and Donn) served in the Revolutionary War.  For his service he was paid in part with a lot of land just south of the Ohio River near Cincinnati.  This precipitated his son Benjamin's life in Cincinnati and eventual move to present-day West Liberty.  Benjamin served as a Quarter Master in the War of 1812.

By the Civil War, Benjamin's family was established in West Liberty.  Abram Piatt made the rank of Brigadier General, and his brother Donn made a name for himself by waiting for his commanding officer to take leave and creating an unapproved regiment of freed slaves.  Decades later, Abram's great-grandsons William and James served in World War II and the Korean War respectively.

What I find interesting about the family's story told through the wars is not the conflicts themselves, but the way in which it relates the Piatt story to the stories of other families across the country.  It pulls historical figures out of abstraction and relates them to a known event.  Just was we use paragraphs to break up blocks of text, wars make excellent delineations and reference points in history.  Someone with a relative who served in WWII has an immediate, real connection with the time period and the story being told when he or she learns about my grandfather, William.

This rather esoteric benefit of military history is vastly inconsequential when compared to the actual horror of war.  As we look back we celebrate not the atrocities or the bloodshed but the outcome.  We manage to overlook the means and enjoy the ends.  This is the spirit of the Fourth of July.  We light things on fire and celebrate our nationhood.  My grandfather shot off the cannon that sits in front of Mac-A-Cheek on the 4th, but only on years when there was a democrat in the White House.  My great-great-great grandfather's brother Donn explained so simply that, "the Fourth of July is a day set apart by the citizens of this blessed country on which to glorify themselves and mutilate their offspring."

Have a safe and happy 4th!