Lowell's For the Union Dead - Essay Example

This research tells that often times within the realm of human experience, it is easy to lose sight of some of the more important aspects that govern the way in which the individual integrates with an understanding of history and of the past. With regards to Lloyd’s essay within the poetry collection, For the Union Dead, the author seeks to utilize the Civil War as a backdrop for understanding the way in which current society values and understands sacrifices made by so many in order to affect the level of freedoms that so very few within the current time seem to appreciate.

Additionally, by discussing the subject matter that Lloyd does, the reader is able to come to an understanding of the relationship between the Civil War, and those within the union that supported the side of the abolition of slavery, as compared to the civil rights movement and the outlook an understanding of individuals within this movement supporting greater freedoms and rights of the disenfranchised African-Americans.  In such a way, the author is able to integrate an understanding of the close connection between those individuals fighting for the freedom of slaves of those individuals within the recent era that stood side-by-side their African American fellow citizens and demanded that society take actions beneficial to all members of society.

Accordingly, this brief essay will trace several of the means by which the author seeks to relate correlate the Civil War to the recent civil rights movement and how the individuals represented within the essay serve to denote far more than just a historical approach. The first reference of course is with regards to the fact that the sacrifices of the men of the 54th Massachusetts have all but been forgotten. In this way, the author draws the parallel to the means by which the commander of the 54th regiment’s body was unceremoniously dumped in a ditch along with his African American soldiers and the means by which the bronze statue in Boston commemorating the commanders sacrifice have both been lost upon the collective memory (Charters & Charters 982).

In much the same way as the ditches unmarked as since the lost history, the statute in Boston represents a figure that has been worn by the years and that no passersby takes note of. In such a way, the pure commonality of such an exhibition is underscored as a means of integrating the reader with an understanding that current society ultimately begins to disregard the lessons learned and soon reverts back to the same type of behavior that prompted the great sacrifices such as that given by the 54th regiment in storming one of the forts surrounding Charleston harbor.

Ultimately, the example of the Civil War is not only used as a means of drawing the attention of the reader to the fact that continual sacrifice and appreciation for such sacrifices are needed in order to create a more equitable society but also as a means of underscoring the direct correlation between those individuals that stood for the rights of African-Americans during the Civil War and those individuals that have and continue to stand with minority groups fighting for a greater level of civil rights within the current era.

Although the Civil War represents a violent conflict in which blood was necessitated to be spilled, the civil rights movement represents a movement that is more or less been bloodless and has been able to be affected by dialogue and nonviolent opposition. However, the dissimilarities between how these particular conflicts have been able to be resolved are brief. Rather, the overall similarities of these conflicts relate to one another on a level which the reader and/or researcher can come to an understanding that the core commonality that exists is dependent upon the will of the unaffected individual sacrifice of himself/herself as a means of realizing a greater degree of freedom for the fellow man.

Regardless of the time, as long as individuals within the society are willing and able to