Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn President Bill Clendaniel Retires | Page 20

People and Happenings
Drew Faust Speaks at Mount Auburn
By Stephen H. Anable, Communications Coordinator & Writer
The President of
Harvard University, Drew
Gilpin Faust, author of
This Republic of Suffering:
Death and the American Civil
War, spoke about her book
to an audience of Friends
members and others in a
packed Story Chapel on
March 19. When introduc-
ing President Faust, Mount
Auburn President Bill
Clendaniel noted that “there
can be no more appropriate
place to discuss death, burial
and commemoration than at
Mount Auburn, the cem-
etery that changed the way
Harvard President Drew Gilpin
America dealt with these
Faust (Photo by Michael Dwyer)
ever-present concerns.” He
added that President Faust
is a neighbor of Mount Auburn, a visitor who enjoys the
Cemetery, and a member of the Friends. Indeed President
Faust mentioned that she had “walked through the Cem-
etery many times” when writing This
Republic of Suffering. Mount Auburn is,
of course, the resting-place of many
people associated with the Civil War
and contains numerous elaborate
monuments carved with sabers, uniforms,
insignia, and caps in astonishingly
detailed marble.
President Faust described death as
being at the center of women’s experi-
ence of the war. She wrote her book
to explore how the nation coped with
the loss of more than 600,000 people.
Half of the dead were never identified,
leaving grieving families unable to “re-
alize” their deaths and thus unable to fully mourn or move
on. Instead, years after Appomattox, families fantasized and
speculated about their loved one’s possible return, hoping
he had somehow survived the carnage and was hospitalized,
had gone west, or was alive but unable to communicate.
This problem was exacerbated by the federal government’s
failure to be required to officially notify families when a
combatant was killed or wounded.
It sometimes fell to private individuals to better the situ-
ation. President Faust related how the story of the death of
Henry Bowditch’s son, Nathaniel—buried here at Mount
Auburn—caused his father to campaign to improve am-
bulance service and thus cut the casualty rate among the
wounded, an action he believed might have saved Nathaniel.
“We are all Civil War survivors,” President Faust said, given
the way the war changed the country. For example, the war
dramatically increased powers of the federal government
as Americans demanded it play a greater role in their lives,
tending for instance to the needs of veterans.
After wine and cheese following her talk, a long line of
guests snaked through the chapel, waiting for President
Faust to sign their copies of her book, a New York Times
bestseller.
Guests line up to have President Faust sign copies
of This Republic of Suffering
18 | Sweet Auburn
Above: The gravestone of Lt.
Col. Waldo Merriam, killed in
battle on May 12, 1865, is an
example of the elaborate carving
on the monuments of some Civil
War soldiers.
Left: (l to r) President Faust,
HonoraryTrustee Robert A.
Lawrence (in back), Bill Clen-
daniel, and Cemetery Trustee
Karen Weltchek Mueller.