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By Rob Sherwood
Special to the Rappahannock News
Rappahannock County High School senior Anna Kreyling and junior Lauren Kruczynski were special guests of honor at the fourth annual dinner of the Blue Ridge Civil War Round Table. They were the two top winners of the group’s first Civil War essay contest.
Not only did they, and a select friend of each of them, receive a fine meal at Fretwell’s Restaurant on Main Street in Front Royal, but also they each collected not inconsiderable cash prizes: $200 for Kreyling’s first place essay and $100 for Kruczynski’s second place essay.
Their topic was to discuss the relevance of the Civil War, now 135 years in the nation’s past, to American society today.
The idea to sponsor an essay contest came from the group’s president Jack Price who thought the contest might give high school students an opportunity to reflect on the important legacy of this single most schismatic event in American history, a conflict whose seeds began with the importation of African slaves into Jamestown in 1619 and whose ultimate cost would be more than 650,000 military and civilian deaths.
Kreyling, an honors student, a star athlete and a member of this year’s Academic Quiz-Bowl team, argued an intriguing thesis:
“The major influence of the Civil War upon our society today was the emphasis that was placed on stronger capitalistic ideals that emerged directly after the war.”
Here is how she concluded her essay: “It may no longer be our fear of splitting as a country that keeps us on this economic track, but it is certainly true that our post-war fears caused us to move to capitalism, and we do indeed follow the same economic practices of 135 years ago.”
On the other hand, Kruczynski, another honors student at RCHS who also enjoys drama, found many ways in which the Civil War has influenced the present:
“The dividing lines that separate parts of the country have been broken. The sections, once obstinate and unbending, now function as a working part of a democracy. War tactics were developed and advanced to suit the need of the rising industrialism. Newly renovated medical tactics brought about a, heightened awareness of the care and treatment needed for certain abrasions and ailments. More attention was paid to the failures of the past and we moved briskly forward into our modem world.”
Although the contest was extended to six area high schools, the most essay respons
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