“Honor:” A Personal Audio Exploration of Civil War Memory and Identity in Appalachia

As a child I was raised with vivid recollections of my Appalachian Civil War ancestors. These stories spoke of desperation, anger and betrayal: of relatives hiding from the home guard in the wilderness, of cousins hung in their front yards and in-laws committing suicide from depression. For the past year and half I have been exploring my own inherited grief over my family’s experiences of the Civil War through the development of an audio piece tentatively called “Honor.” In the development of “Honor” I have reenacted with and interviewed members of a Confederate reenactment unit as well as gathered stories from Appalachian residents and historians including ballad singer Sheila Kay Adams. In “Honor”, these interviews mixed with my own narrative reflections are used to ask and answer questions that many ponder about family identity: What qualities do we claim from our ancestors, and what qualities do we seek to discard? What does it mean to truly honor or respect the people we come from, even when they have committed atrocities? My presentation will focus on exploring the ways that those I interviewed choose to view their ancestors and shape their own identities through those choices. I will talk about the personal transformations that occurred in the course of the project and reflect on how the development of “Honor” has helped me- a great-granddaughter of the War- heal my own Civil War wounds