Gettysburg, PA: Three Confederate Prisoners

In a very real way,
I was there at the Battle of Gettysburg.
In a very real way,
today is like that turning time.

Two of my great-great-grandfathers fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

One of them, Lorenzo Whitaker, fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. He was wounded and taken prisoner in fighting that left his unit decimated and most of his comrades dead.

One hundred fifty years later, on July 1, 2013, my cousin Skip Rohde wrote an intriguing post about our common ancestor and his participation in that battle. Skip concluded his “Gettysburg Anniversary” reflections this way:

So as we commemorate Gettysburg over the next couple of days, and think about its impact on our country, I’m going to think instead about its impact on me, personally.  Had anything been different there, had a bullet gone slightly right or left, or an order been given a second earlier or later, I might not be here.  The individual strength of one man, though, pulled him through multiple major battles, two years in a prison camp, and into a farmer’s life in the reconstruction South, where he successfully raised a family, one of whom eventually led to me.

On July 2, 2013, having read and pondered Skip’s article, I wrote the original version of this post. Here were my thoughts then.

My Gettysburg legacy

I can identify, Skip. I too exist because a man named Lorenzo Whitaker survived the Civil War and, more specifically, the Battle of Gettysburg.

Also, cousin, something else amazes me. In a very real way, wherever our great-great-grandfather’s life and wartime experiences took him, we were there.

When powerful people instigated the war – to keep and to multiply their wealth, status and control over other human lives – and when they used Lorenzo (and others like him) to fight it, we were there.

We were there when Lorenzo somehow survived Second Manassas and Antietam, as well as Gettysburg – and then survived two years’ imprisonment in Fort Delaware.

We were there as he witnessed carnage – and participated in it; as he shed blood – and as he bled; as he cursed and prayed, hated and loved, laughed and cried.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War. It was also a turning point for Lorenzo. Before Gettysburg, his unit had repeatedly routed the Union troops, though also sustaining heavy losses. But in July 1863, that 20-year-old’s life dramatically changed. From that point, he encountered:

• profound defeat in battle;
• imprisonment and the horrific conditions of the prison camp;
• the defeat of the Confederacy;
• the dire straits in the South in the war’s aftermath; and
• the determination of white Southern leaders to re-establish their power – and their power structures.

Released from prison in June 1865, Lorenzo married, farmed and raised a family in the midst of it all.

Inner wounds yet unhealed

Those who’ve experienced war, or abuse, or other trauma know the physical wounds often heal much faster and more fully than the inner wounds. Indeed, unhealed inner wounds often show up in the next generation, and the next.

Further, we white Southerners – the people most likely to tell our black counterparts to get over their historical and generational wounds – clearly demonstrate that we ourselves haven’t healed. Among the many evidences: More than 150 years later, we’re still re-living those battles, still trying to win that war.

It’s the inner wounds – such as the wounds Lorenzo received and inflicted – that have been passed down unawares, from generation to generation of us whose roots lie in the Deep South.

It’s the inner wounds of hundreds of thousands of Lorenzos – now manifesting in millions of their descendants – that God is exposing in this turning time, as he concurrently offers us grace to see, to release and to heal.

Epilogue 2026: This turning time

All these years later, here I sit, in a nation again at war with itself, and for the same underlying reasons.

Pondering again the words I wrote in 2013, I feel again all that cumulative, generational pain – that ungrieved grief, unclaimed guilt, unexplored resentment and fear, pride and shame. Still not faced. Not released.

I realize how strongly the weight of it compelled me to research and sit with and learn from and grapple with and write, We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church.

That whole process dramatically changed my life. It taught me to see. It changed my heart.

Terrified, yet eager to help others leave behind what had shackled us for so long, I published We Confess.

The result? Rejection. Shunning. Erasure. And yet: More. Life. Than. Ever. More capacity for compassion, joy, humility, love, than I had ever before even begun to know.

All these years later, I’m still learning and living that life. Yet also, I still recall the weight of living most of my life in bondage to generational wounds. And I still feel the weightiness of knowing the way of escape.

All these years later, the God who entrusted all that to me still compels me to keep speaking up, for others with seeking hearts.

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This post replaces a shorter post published July 2, 2013.

Image of Three Confederate prisoners: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

See also

• Isn’t it time to leave the past behind?
• Counting the cost, going with God
• This “good Christian girl” is a woman now
• The Civil War, the South and the church (the post)
• We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church (the book)