My Civil War Expert Visit

The Civil War has played a bigger role in my blog this year than I would have predicted a year ago. I have had friends practically stop speaking to me over my blogging about the mere mention of Civil War statues. Well, this Civil War blog is not controversial at all.  
Despite not having taken one history class at Dickinson, my classmate Eric became a civil war historian writer in between work as a trial lawyer. He just published his 20th Civil War book, We Ride a Whirlwind: Sherman and Johnston at Bennett Place, which is a Civil War historic spot right here in Durham.  
A few years ago Eric and his wife, Susan came down to Bennett Place so Eric could give a talk to the faithful Civil War history followers. He told me then that he was writing this book and would be back when it got released. True to his word, he finished this book and returned to Durham.  
Susan and a Eric came to stay at the Lange hotel, where most of the rooms sit languishing unused as I am the only one here most of the time. It has been so fun to talk about old college friends and get to know Susan and Eric better.
After a successful gathering of Civil War devotees at Eric’s talk at Bennett Place today and some very good book sales they came back to our house. Russ and I took them on a small tour of Durham’s non-Civil War sites, like the roof of the Durham Hotel, Ninth Street and Duke Chapel.
They treated us to a lovely outdoor dinner at Vin Rouge, despite some incredibly slow service. At one point during the day I asked Eric his opinion about Civil War statues and both he and Susan said that it should be a local issue and whatever the local community wants to do with them as long as it is not destroying them is the right thing to do. I learned that many of the non-Jim Crow era statues were erected not to memorialize the southern leaders work in the war, but the work they did to heal the wounds that the war caused.
Seems like Americans could work a little harder to mend wounds we are creating in the internal war that seems to be going on thanks to Washington. Rather than draining the swamp, it feels like a battle field has gone up in DC. I think my friend Eric could stop working on the Civil War and maybe write some books about how we can just be civil.