Abner Lee Snow, if I imagine him, must have possessed the t-bone shaped facial structure that typifies both myself, his great-great-grandson, and my grandmother, his granddaughter – that is, the cheeks forming the top of the 'T' and the chin and teeth forming the base. My father's nervous, sad brown eyes, if Abner would ever have had them, would have been quick and uncertain.

It is early June in 1863 in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the loosely organized Confederate States of America. The Federal Army withdrew from the area around Chancellorsville in retreat almost a month ago and the city of Richmond is still picking up the pieces. Abner Lee Snow, my great-great-grandfather, has come to a dilapidated military hospital to collect his brother, Frost Snow.

The entire South is waking up today, April 10 2010, as I write this. Some are hungover from the flag-waving and flag-planting that took place yesterday at Confederate graves, wherever they may lie, across the former states of the rebellious union that was dissolved 145 years ago.

Southerners, especially young men, are raised from an early age on the stories of the Civil War, and, contrary to popular belief, that is what we call it (no “War Between the States” or “War of Northern Aggression” around here). By my count, on both sides of my lineage, I have 6 ancestors who served in the Confederate Army during the conflict. This is a point that grandparents bring up often, a point of pride. I am unaware of many nations where a formerly rebellious section so proudly and unabashedly celebrates its failed rebellion, especially 145 years after the fact. Oh yes, those gray and brown uniforms, hodge-podge, rag-tag rebels fighting for their homeland – the South. Martin Sheen and Patrick Swayze have portrayed us well in films – dashing fellows, no, they didn't want to go to war, but damned if they didn't give it their all once they arrived. Huzzah!

Abner Lee Snow was born to Richard Snow and Sally Tucker Snow in 1843 in Surry County, North Carolina. Surry County is best known by its most famous resident, Andy Griffith, and the town of Mt. Airy, where Griffith grew up, which became the basis for Mayberry in Griffith's TV sitcom. Surry County was then and is still a very rural, foothills community, dominated by the looming presence of Pilot Mountain, a bizarre monadnock that seems to, by will alone, have pulled itself 1,500 feet out of the green, rolling hills and into the sky.

By the time Abner enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861 he had 11 siblings – 7 brothers and 4 sisters. Four of his brothers would enlist along with him. In Company C of the 21^st NC Infantry there were 4 Snow brothers: Thomas, Abner, Frost and Byrd. Another brother, James, was serving in the 28^th NC.

Southern culture, it seems by nature alone, is martial. The former states of the Confederacy must have decided, whether by purpose or coincidence, to form a tiny, drawling Sparta for the United States. Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Camp Lejeune, Parris Island and Fort Benning spread across three states alone – North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. You would be hard pressed to find a native Southerner who doesn't, by default, support most, if not all military action, taken by the United States, especially in the past 10 years. Maybe it's the humidity.

I was raised visiting battlefields, cemeteries, monuments, museums, to be fair, though, I sought all these things out. The impression, though, was hard to deny, especially as a child.
Why did we lose?
How could we lose?
It wasn't really about slavery, was it?
Oh, what I would have given to go back in time and lie about my age, enlist like all those boys I read about in lavishly illustrated, glossy-covered books.

Abner Lee Snow, I'm not sure how, procures the lifeless shell of his brother, Frost. Abner is 20 years old. Frost was 23. Frost had been wounded at the Battle of 2^nd Manassas in 1862 and had survived, returning to duty after a short time. As the 21^st NC Infantry was called into battle at Chancellorsville on May 3 1863, Frost was wounded again, most likely in sight of his three brothers serving in Company C with him. Later that same day at Chancellorsville, Byrd was also wounded – being hit in the arm, the limb had to be amputated soon thereafter – but he survived. Frost, however, lingered in a military hospital in Richmond until June 5 1863, when he died. Abner, without his other brothers from Company C, visits the hospital, to collect Frost's remains. Abner Lee Snow carefully packs his brother's body into a box and secures him tightly with fistfuls of sawdust for the trip back to Surry County where he will be buried on the family farm. Once Frost's remains are shipped, Abner Lee Snow returns to his unit. Frost had never married.

We, like all boys, played at 'war' in the woods behind our grandparent's homes. My grandfathers' both served briefly in the military in the mid-50s, one in the Air Force, the other in the Army. I was, by all accounts and my own memory, a very mild-mannered, curious, bookish young boy, but I knew my lineage, the lineage of the South, and never lost the draw to the military, to some sort of ethereal notion of glory, of service, patriotic duty. After several lies of omission about my past health issues, both physical and mental, I enlisted in the Army after graduating from college.

The Snow brothers, now Byrd, Thomas and Abner, of Company C, move on from Chancellorsville through Gettysburg and Cold Harbor to Hatcher's Run, Virginia. Byrd has now been promoted to the rank of Captain – Thomas and Abner now serve under him. Company C lost two men during Hatcher's Run, one of which was Byrd, who left behind a wife but no children.

My medical past, and my academic disposition and pacifistic nature, all catch up to me at Fort Benning, Georgia during basic training in the summer of 2007. Deceived by the notion that anyone, even a quiet, bookish young man, can become a soldier, my mind breaks down and I am discharged. Disgraced. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Unsure, for the first time in my life, of who I am.

Thomas and Abner Lee Snow, the two surviving brothers from Company C, return home to Surry County at the end of the war. Their return is quiet and they resume, as best they can, their lives. Abner marries in December of 1865 and eventually has 7 children, one of which is my great-grandfather. Abner dies at the age of 53. Thomas dies in 1904 at the age of 78.

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around."
 
~ Gilbert K. Chesterton