Robert E. Lee’s Nemesis, the Gallant Fourteenth ~ Veterans Day on the Bryan William Brickner Blog

Veterans Fortuna and Nemesis

“The Rock of Gibraltar,” opened Bryan W. Brickner, “was not a simple landmark to early cultures: it was the end of the world.”

In Robert E. Lee’s Nemesis, the Gallant Fourteenth ~ Veterans Day on the Bryan William Brickner Blog, the story of the 14^th Indiana Infantry Regiment, part of the Union’s Civil War Gibraltar Brigade, is seen through the battle lines of Robert E. Lee and the goddess Nemesis, or divine balancer.

“Nemesis was more respected than worshipped by Mediterranean Greek and Roman cultures,” commented Brickner. “One can understand why they did so by viewing Nemesis through her sister goddess Fortuna (fortune). Nemesis played the role of divine balancer to the fortunes of life; basically, Fortuna would give and Nemesis would say that’s enough.”

“The 14th can be seen as Robert E. Lee’s nemesis,” Brickner continued, “as they met him all over the Eastern theater, to include: Cheat Mountain, Antietam (where they earned the name Gibraltar Brigade), and Chancellorsville where Lee suffered the loss of Stonewall Jackson.”

“Combat veterans know these two goddesses,” closed Brickner, “although not by their traditional names perhaps; and, like the ancients, veterans know best not to worship Nemesis: showing respect for divine balance was (and is) the expectation.”

Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of several political theory books, for example, The Promise Keepers (1999), Article the first (2006), and The Book of the Is (2013); he also writes political fiction, such as the novella thereafter (2013). The Bryan William Brickner Blog is an ongoing resource for the political science of constitutions and the biological science of receptors.

Next Up: Thanksgiving Day with John Bunyan and a Pilgrim’s Court.

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