The first deals with questions like, "When and where did the Battle of Gettysburg take place, how many men were involved, what units, what kinds of weapons, how many casualties resulted, how were their uniforms decorated?" Many of these types of questions can be answered to a high degree of accuracy. But they really aren't all that important, are they? In fact, its not really history at all, its what Civil War buffs do to amuse themselves.

More valuable to the student of history are questions like, "How did the battle affect the Civil War, what were the mistakes, or triumphs of both sides, what could each side have done differently, what difference might that have made to the events of the War?" It even makes sense to ask what did the participants think about what happened (not just what they said they thought!) This is what we need to know if we ever find ourselves in a Gettysburg-type situation in the future, even though we realize that exact situation will never be repeated.

A detailed knowledge of the first kind of historical information is rarely possible, but even when that is achieved it is of limited usefulness. The second type of information is more subjective, less provable, and will tend to be very different depending who you ask, or even when. It is never really true or false, because there is no way to really verify it. Even if you know for a fact that B follws A, how B affected A is a matter of opinion.

This doesn't mean we should refuse to speculate or have opinions, just that we should
recognize them for what they are. How an action is interpreted by those safely contemplating it from a great distance is very different from what one experiences when submerged in the middle of it.

To continue our military analogy, I will repeat a metaphor I've employed before. To the Reb or the Yankee carrying a musket or riding a horse or loading a cannon, the battle looks very different. He sees only the little piece around him. To the generals in their headquarters, poring over their maps and reading dispatches, their perspective is much broader, but less detailed, and stretched out in time. Who's to say who has the better view? In fact, does it even make sense to say there is a "view" at all. Which battle are we talking about? They don't call it the "fog of war" for nothing. We're still arguing about what exactly went on that day, and there is still controversy.

One man's "brilliant pincher movement" is another's "premature dividing of his forces". Was that a "bold and spirited attack", or a pointless and disastrous attempt to dislodge an impregnable position". Was that a "dogged and determined defense", Or a "foolish waste of men and resources" over a position of no military value.

Usually, the men who were there don't know the answers to those questions until long after the action is over. Perhaps not even then. Its awfully easy to pontificate today, perhaps centuries later, not only over what happened, but what should have happened, much less what it all means.

A knowledge of history is like any experience which has been absorbed or processed. We must gain something by it, but its hard to say exactly what. I suppose its like a raising a child. It must certainly be useful to have that knowledge if you are blessed with another child later in life, but it is no guarantee the second child will be brought up better than the first. You are not the same, the circumstances are not the same, the child will not be the same. And just what does "brought up better (or worse)" actually mean?

George Santayana once said

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Pretty words, but pretty obvious, and not very useful, don't you think?

He also said this

"...the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and gods, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions.

They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices. Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact."

He got that right. Especially that last sentence. We are all forced to face reality with less information than we really need.