Fresh back from their gig in DC playing for Senator Daniel Inouye and the other Japanese Americans who helped the U.S. win WWII, the patriotically-quaffed Tredegar Brass Band blew and drummed brilliantly spirited tunes during my visit to the American Civil War Center on 11/4/2011.

As I was toe-tapping I began reading the signage on an exhibit of letters from Civil War children: “My dear, dear, Father,” wrote 10-year-old Loulie Gilmer from Savannah, “I do want to see you so much . . .” Then a dozen feet away I viewed an exhibit about how the Civil War is an important theme in American popular culture – an exhibit that included bobble head dolls of Lee and Grant. The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar Ironworks is diverse in its treatment of the War’s meaning then and now.

The band played on.