Three Degrees of Separation

[Originally composed in 2012]

History is not as distant as you might think.

I had a conversation with an acquaintance a few months back that made me think of our personal relationship with history. He commented that his great grandfather met Robert E. Lee after he was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines (1862)1. This is a jaw-dropping claim and seems impossible at first glance, but the math works out. If a man was born in 1842, he was 20 years old in 1862. If he then had a child, say, when he was 40 years old which is perfectly within reason, then his son or daughter was born in 1882. If that child then had a child at 40 years of age, then this grandchild was born in 1922. If this person then had a child at 40 years of age then the great-grandchild was born in 1962. This document is written in 2012, so the great-grandchild of the man who met Robert E. Lee in 1862 is now a mere 50 years old. All of this is perfectly within reason.

Suppose you stretch this out a bit? Suppose each of these parents was male, then it’s quite within reason to have a child at 50 years of age. What is possible? Say a man is born in the year 1770, lives to at least 50 years of age and has a child at 50. This son was born in the year 1820. This man has a son at 50 years of age. This grandson is born in the year 1870. The grandson has a child at 50 years of age. This great-grandson is born in the year 1920. This great-grandson is alive today at 92 years old. So this 92 year-old man’s great-grandfather may have known George Washington. It’s unbelievable that someone alive now could have had experiences related to them that are only second-hand information (rather than third or fourth hand) that go all the way back to the American Revolution, but the math works out. It’s perfectly possible. All that is required is longevity and each generation continuing to have children late in life.

I could go on from here about how this relates to the persistence of anachronistic beliefs in contemporary American society but that’s probably a fool’s errand so I guess I’ll skip it.

Footnotes:
1 Robert E. Lee was not the commanding general at the Battle of Seven Pines so the anecdote I heard may have gotten a little garbled over the years, however Lee took over immediately following the battle and the distances involved are not great between the Confederate capital of Richmond and the location of the battle. It seems not implausible to me.

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