[Polybius]

On the other hand, when I see a bunch of people waving the confederate battle flag I get the urge to buy a Dodge Charger, paint it dark blue with a 35 star Union flag on the top, and wire it's horn to play the Battle Hymm of the Republic. I'll name it the General Grant.

Actually, that's the way it should be.

Use the battle flags to honor the soldiers that did their duty as they saw it and leave the battle flags out of current politics.

[zeugma]

Your picture is one of the reasons this country has been so successful.

It was only a very few years after the war that folks were getting together on battlefields for reenactments and picnics. Men in Blue and Gray would willingly sit down at the dinner table and break bread together.

In other nations, you see deep animosities that periodically result in pogroms, and general death and mayhem.

 Sure, we still have regional rivalries, but that's fairly natural, and pre-existed the War Between the States anyway.

One of the truely tragic results of the war was the huge general increase in federal government power that has only grown since.

[Mr. Silverback]

At times like this I remember the relationship between Sherman and Johnston, the way Lee and Grant reacted with utter disdain to any criticism of the other, and the whirlwind romance and marriage of Union Brigadier General Smith Atkins to the daughter of David Lowry Swain, former Governor of North Carolina.

[Hacksaw]

Re 39 - who is in the picture and when was it taken?