June 24, 2019 Monday
Bedtime Story
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God will that it continue until all
the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until very drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be
paid by another dawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so
still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.””
Lincoln’s wish indeed came true and his
prayers apparently answered because the great civil war ended just two months
(or even one as many historians argue) following his winning address to the
nation.
The war effectively ended on April 9, 1865
because on the day the Commander of the Confederate States Army General Robert
Lee surrendered to General Ulysses Grant at the Appomattox Court House in a
village of the Appomattox County in the state of Virginia.
There was no bloodshed in this combined surrender
and truce and on the contrary Lee has come to be revered more after the
surrender than during the course of the prolonged war.
Today he remains and is recalled as a
national hero with several monuments, memorials, countless statues dedicated to
him along with college and university named after him.
While god apparently did end the war as
Lincoln had fondly hoped and fervently prayed (and if you wish to believe in
this pleasant-sounding fairy tale), the same god did precious little to save
him when Booth shot him in his head at point blank range barely 40 days or so
after he had addressed his people in his victory.
Lincoln’s speech following his re-election
– if the god and religion part is accepted as a figure of speech – speaks
volumes about the conditions prevailing in the United States in 1860s –
politically, socially, religiously and economically.
Just by the way, it was only in the 1850s
that the United States had begun to have a semblance of what it appears today
and when California was given the statehood in 1851 the Pacific Coast was
reached.
In 1840s the Industrial Revolution of
United states had begun but even there it was confined to the Free states (in
contrast to the slave states) of New England, the North East and the Midwest.
Roads, railroads, water canal system which
greatly enhanced transportation and increased mobility and connectivity for
trade, along with family farms, industry, mining, commerce with establishment
of industrial cities and commercial centers such as Boston, New York City and
Philadelphia was rapidly transforming the North.
1840s was also the era of old migration
that constituted the classic European migrants mainly from Britain, Ireland and
Germany-centered Europe who also had a much-desired high birth rate.
These European migrants were either of
“push” types or “pull” types.
The “push” type immigrants were mainly the
Irish who were escaping the Great Famine (also commonly known as the Irish
Potato Famine) that lasted for four-long years from 1845 to 1849.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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