A Tale Of Two Sides

Scots who fought on both sides of the American Civil War are commemorated in Edinburgh

- Kenny MacAskill

WHILE over in the United States earlier this year,my partner and I took the opportunity to visit some battlefields of the American Civil War.

It’s a historical event that has long fascinated me.A dreadful carnage in which 620,000 Americans died – more than in all other conflicts since. Shamefully I recall, like many a 1960s child in Scotland, collecting picture cards brought out for its centenary, some of which were particularly gruesome.

Driving up the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, where much of the conflict ebbed and flowed, we witnessed the bleakness of the scene, accentuated by the coldness of the weather. Crossing into Pennsylvania, the scale of Gettysburg was more reminiscent of Flanders Fields than the battlefield akin to Bannockburn or Culloden that I’d imagined. That war saw Scotland’s sons fight on both sides, as in many conflicts. That’s something remembered in Edinburgh, and remarkably memorials to both stand less than 3.2km (two miles) apart.

As Justice Secretary, my office in St Andrews House looked out on Old Calton Cemetery where there’s a statue to Abraham Lincoln, erected to Scots who fought for the Union. It stands near the entrance of one of Auld Reekie’s most fascinating cemeteries; it also contains philosopher David Hume’s mausoleum, the obelisk to political reformer Thomas Muir and the radicals transported to Australia, and many other famous Scots.

A fitting location, then, for erected outwith America – also perhaps apt given Old Abe’s love for Robert Burns. Unveiled in 1893, it became a major attraction for visiting Americans. It depicts freed slaves and records names of Scottish soldiers who served in Illinois, Maine, Michigan and New York Regiments.