History Lessens

“The past is never dead.  It isn't even past.”                                                    

                                       -William Faulkner

You can only talk and listen to the radio on a road trip for so long before the boredom lulls you into silence.  If you’re not careful you might just be forced to think. We pulled into the Missouri visitor center for a road map and a little advice.  We’d driven over a thousand miles - Milwaukee to Dallas and part way back - relying solely on GPS but now we were tired and looking for a place to stay.  A few names jumped off the map. Braggadocio, Cooter and Festus brought a smile to my wife Jennifer’s face but I didn't have a story connected to any of them and we wanted more than just a bed and a pillow.  

I’d considered a stop in New Madrid, Missouri but the lady at the visitor center talked us out of it.  Too small. Most people probably haven't even heard of it but in 1811-1812 New Madrid was the epicenter of the largest earthquake to hit North America in recorded history.  The quake was reportedly so powerful that it forced the Mississippi River to flow backward. Tremors were felt as far away as Quebec, Canada. The quake also created Reelfoot Lake, an enormous 18,000 acre wetland in northwestern Tennessee.  

We decided to stay in Cape Girardeau, Missouri not out of fear of aftershocks but because it was big enough to have several hotels to choose from.  It turns out that the city has its own bloody story to tell: the infamous Battle of Cape Girardeau. While not as well known as Gettysburg, Shiloh or Antietam it played a role in the Civil War.  As a kid I pictured slavery and the war it helped to spawn as a Deep South problem when in reality Missouri is just a few hours drive from Wisconsin across the cornfields of Iowa. We’re practically neighbors.

Technically it wasn’t a battle it was a “military demonstration,” but with Union and Confederate forces numbering in the thousands the situation could have turned out far differently.  Cape Girardeau was strategically important because it is situated at a high point overlooking the Mississippi River. Four defensive forts were constructed along the river bluffs and the town’s outer perimeter.  At the time of the battle about four thousand Union troops were stationed in the area. A Confederate brigadier general with the impressive name of John Sappington Marmaduke threatened to lay siege to the city. The general was leading a division - many of them unarmed and without horses - hoping to capture enough supplies to outfit his men.  

On April 26, 1863 Marmaduke demanded the surrender of the city but the Union forces, confident in their position inside their fortifications refused to give in.  What followed was a more than a demonstration with an estimated 325 casualties for Marmaduke’s forces and only around a dozen for the union. Marmaduke was play acting, trying to draw the Union forces out of their defensive positions.  It didn’t work. As a result of the battle/demonstration Marmaduke ended his raids in Missouri (only to be elected governor of the state twenty years later but that story is for another time).

Just north of St. Louis I spied Ferguson, Missouri on the map.  While its font size blended in with the surrounding communities the name Ferguson jumped off the page.  Ferguson was the epicenter of a different cataclysm that I’m not even sure how to describe. I’m a recovering historian and I’m still digesting the protests and the violence that rocked the country and forced us to come to grips with our nation’s ugly race record.   A few years ago I hadn’t even heard of the place. But once you know something it’s hard to un-know it.

The last place that caught my eye was Cahokia.  Technically it’s not in Missouri it’s just over the border in Illinois but that distinction wouldn’t have mattered to the original inhabitants.  Cahokia is the largest pre-Columbian archeological site north of Mexico City. Eight hundred years ago 20,000 people inhabited the place. Now it's a park.  Abandoned...farmed out? Starved or driven out? Scientists don’t know for sure what finally did it. I might have learned more if we had stopped but by then we both just wanted to get home.  Catastrophes both natural and manmade. Civil war and civil unrest. Perhaps it was because we were coming to the end of a long trip; or maybe Missouri really is a crossroads.

The next day as we were driving through St. Louis we spied the world famous Arch. It’s supposed to represent the city’s role as the gateway to the mythical American west.  For some reason as we passed through it linked me to the pre war South and parts of our history we’d prefer to forget. We kept driving. I was in a hurry to get home and turn on the tv.  I’d done enough thinking for awhile . . .