'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
"Iknew wherever I was that you thought of me and that if I got in a tight place, you would come -- if alive." This statement was contained in a letter dated March 10, 1864, written by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It expresses an ageless ethos among warriors, especially those within the U.S. military.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum's new exhibition, "The Civil War and American Art," which opens today, has two stars. One is the enslaved black American; the other is Winslow Homer.
Currently enjoying its bicentennial, the War of 1812 occupies a musty, forgotten junk drawer in America's collective cultural consciousness, stuffed somewhere between the liberation of Grenada and the time Will Smith punched that extraterrestrial fighter pilot in the face.
Public figures have little control over how they are remembered. Herbert Hoover did not expect to be forever linked to the Great Depression. Richard Nixon never expected to be known as the only president to resign his office.
