They were tough in those days.

Today, we consider ourselves having a hard time if the air conditioning goes out for twenty minutes. Anyone who manages to go an entire two days before they can get a compressor replaced is considered to be tough because they could put up with the hardship. Well, let me tell you about a few people who were truly tough.

For example, my half-great-granduncle fought for the Confederacy. So did one of my great-grandfathers. As it happened, both were captured by the Yankees on July 4,1863, but the outcome for each was poles apart.

My half-great-granduncle was just an ordinary, illiterate farmer who ended up fighting with the 39th North Carolina Infantry. Where was the 39th fighting in early July, 1863? Gettysburg. The 39th N.C. Infantry was, in fact, the unit that was assigned to attack Seminary Ridge that was defended by the 1st U.S. Brigade (known as the Iron Brigade).

With the Iron Brigade holding the high ground, the 39th attacked straight into the teeth of withering defensive fire and defiladed cannon emplacements that were firing everything from cannonballs to chains and scrap metal at the oncoming Rebs.

What their losses were I can’t say, but the 39th not only made it to the top of Seminary Ridge, they actually drove the Iron Brigade off the ridge. My half-great-granduncle? He survived the attack unscathed. But on July 4, 1863, with the Confederates in retreat, he was wounded and captured. For the next two years, he was bounced from Yankee hospital to Yankee hospital and even survived a smallpox ward. He was finally repatriated at the end of the war, returned to Richmond, Virginia where he died in a Reb hospital.

When you consider that hospitals during the War of the Rebellion were frequently hospitals in name only, the fact that he lasted two years is a testament to his toughness.

As for my great-grandfather, he endured the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Yanks couldn’t take Vicksburg, situated as it was on the bluffs above the Mississippi River. But they could lay siege to it with guns mounted on barges. Most of the population wound up holed up in caves. Finally, on July 4,1863, the city (and my great-grandfather) surrendered to the Yankees. Faced with a major logistical problem (where do you put the population of an entire city if you take them prisoner), the Yanks chose instead to offer them parole.

Parole, in this case, meant that you signed a paper swearing that you would go home an not take up arms against the North again. My great-grandfather signed a parole of his own and I have a copy of it.

Of course, the Yankees must’ve known that none of those Southeners considered the parole they signed to be worth the paper it was written on. My great-grandfather was undoubtedly typical. He signed his parole, went home, dug another gun out of the woodpile, or the woods, or wherever it was hidden, and went back to the war.

Two relatives. One died two years later, one didn’t. One suffered imprisonment, one didn’t. But they were both tough as nails, refusing to give in as long as there was a breath in their body. In my own way, I’m just as tough as they were, though I certainly can’t match them physically. But mentally, emotionally and just plain pure-dee stubborn? Absolutely.

So if you wonder why you have some of the attitudes you have, take a look back at those family skeletons.