April 01, 2015

Sesquicentennial Spotlight: The Battle of Five Forks

April 01, 2015/ Rebekah Oakes

In the waning days of March 1865, as the armies in both blue and gray languished in the muddy trenches of Petersburg, Ulysses S. Grant still searched for a final, climatic battle. However, since 1861 the Civil War had transformed into a type of warfare very different than lines of soldiers advancing across open, rolling fields. As both armies settled into miles of intricately built trenches and stalemate ensued, that Clausewitzian final battle of apocalyptic proportions seemed increasingly unlikely. The end of the war would come, but in ways not even the premier military leaders of the time expected.

As winter turned to spring in 1865, Robert E. Lee’s confederate Army of Northern Virginia was suffering from a chronic lack of supplies, rising casualty figures, and heavy desertion. However, the Virginian had created an extremely strong line of defenses around Petersburg that the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that was the Army of the Potomac had been unable to breach. Grant knew that if a weakness on this line could be found and exploited properly, it could not only mean the fall of Petersburg and subsequently Richmond, but eventually the surrender of Lee’s Army and the end of the war.

This opportunity came on Petersburg’s Western Front 150 years ago, on April 1, 1865, at a place where five roads converged. It became not only a battle of strategic importance, but also a captivating study in leadership and reputation. The Battle of Five Forks was brief, but its significance unquestionable.

March 30, 2015

Could Slavery Have Died a Peaceful Death?

March 30, 2015/ Civil Discourse

On January 31, 1865, the United States Congress narrowly passed an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery; that this was accomplished thanks to the American Civil War is undeniable. That destroying slavery became a primary goal of the Civil War, however, was not initially expected. Many northerners were extremely reluctant to abolish the institution. Only through the actions of enslaved men and women, a small group of abolitionists, and the interaction of U.S. soldiers with the brutal institution was the North compelled to focus on slavery. Which begs the question: Could slavery have been abolished without the Civil War?

March 26, 2015

Experiencing the War: The Soldier's View

March 26, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

For soldiers, leaving home and entering a world far different from civilian life, change would come rapidly and without mercy. Soldiers went through a psychological evolution from civilian to volunteer to soldier as they coped with the challenges of war, each step changing them more and taking them further from their civilian lives. This process included suppressing pre-war identities and creating new ones, identities based on professionalism and a certain amount of callousness in order to survive the war.

March 23, 2015

Approaching Appomattox: Evaluating the Future of the Civil War at the Close of the Sesquicentennial

March 23, 2015/ Becca Capobianco

The 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox is less than a month away.

If you have spent any time around a battlefield or related Civil War historic sites, you have probably heard people musing about what these commemorative landscapes will look like after the sesquicentennial closes. In short, many (most) people presume: they won’t look like much. Even die-hard Civil War buffs are predicting a sharp decline in visitation, interest, and enthusiasm once Appomattox passes.

I find that deeply troubling.

March 19, 2015

Patriotism in Print: The American Union, A Soldier's Wartime Paper

March 19, 2015/ Zac Cowsert

On the evening of July 3, 1861, a dozen Union soldiers (self -described “disciples of Faust”) broke into the offices of the of the Virginia Republican—a decidedly secessionist organ—and appropriated the newspaper’s office for their own use. The next morning—on the Fourth of July—the first issues of the American Union hit the streets of Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). The newspaper—composed and printed entirely by Union soldiers—enjoyed a brief existence in Martinsburg, lasting only as long as the Union troops occupied the town. Despite its brief existence, however, the paper sheds light onto the patriotism and zeal of Union soldiers during the war's opening months.

March 16, 2015

Historical Context: A Response to Gordon Wood

March 16, 2015/ Chuck Welsko

Recently a friend provided me with an article from February 23, by Gordon Wood in The Weekly Standard. Throughout that piece, “History in Context: The American Vision of Bernard Bailyn,” Wood praised his mentor for seeing the large themes and movements in American history without being waylaid by minutia, while simultaneously criticizing the current state of the history profession. It seems that Bailyn’s Peopling of British North America series, originated in 1986 has received a fair amount of criticism because it relegates the experiences of Native and African Americans to the sidelines. Criticism that Wood asserts is unjustified, but is also telling on the state of the historical profession. Namely that “[i]t’s as if academics have given up trying to recover an honest picture of the past and have decided that their history-writing should become simply an instrument of moral hand-wringing.” Wood goes on to argue that the academic focus on “inequality and white privilege in America society” via the proliferating studies of race and gender history has distracted the historical community. As a result, many readers lack the ability to gain from historians the full narrative of American history. Wood believes that the attention to African-American slaves, women, and Native Americans has fragmented the study of history in such a way that the attention to contemporary moral standards has anachronistically distorted the study of the past, taking it out of context.

March 14, 2015

Hoping for Freedom

March 14, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Dred and Harriet Scott hold hands in front of the St. Louis courthouse where they first sued for their freedom, and look forever through the famous St. Louis Arch. While the arch specifically relates to the Louis and Clark expedition and westward expansion, it also represents for many the American Dream...

March 12, 2015

"A Sunken House with Nothing but the Roof Above the Tide:" Rebuilding the CSS Virginia

March 12, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

On March 9, 1862, the famous duel between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (better known as the Merrimack) occurred at Hampton Roads. Both ships signaled the dawn of a new age in Naval tactics and architecture; however, the Virginia makes more of an impact on the navies of the world and is made more remarkable in the fact that she was built by a confederation with so few resources and had such a short career. The Virginia only lived for nine weeks between the time she was floated and her destruction; she spent only twelve days out of dry dock during those nine weeks, and was in battle for a total of about twelve hours. In that short time span and with the resources pulled together by a fledgling Confederate government, the CSS Virginia ushered in the next era of naval technology.

March 09, 2015

Suing for Freedom: The Dred Scott Case

March 09, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

In March 1857, the Supreme Court delivered a ruling that sent shock waves through the north. In the Court opinion delivered by Chief Justice Roger Taney, slaves were not considered citizens of the United States and could not sue in Federal Court, but more importantly Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. For free labor/free soil advocates in the north, this was a major step backwards in the efforts to contain the spread of slavery.

Everything centered on one man, a slave named Dred Scott.

March 05, 2015

The Civil War Sesquicentennial: Commemoration in the Digital Age

March 05, 2015/ Rebekah Oakes

The American Civil War has left behind layers. When modern Americans visit battlefields, we see not only scars left between the years 1861 and 1865, but also select remnants of eras before and after. We see historic structures, which were the homes and businesses of people who occupied these now hallowed spaces long before the soldiers in blue and gray. Monuments, placed by veterans, heritage groups, and state and federal governments dot the landscape. Fortified earthworks, rebuilt fences, even trees and parking lots all tell complex stories of various attempts at remembering.

Which leads us to question, what has the 150th left behind?

March 02, 2015

Bringing Some Gold to the Civil War: Let’s Talk About California

March 02, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

At the corner of the angle stands a large, but simplistic stone monument. Rising four stone layers from the pedestal, topped with pointed stone pieces, and supporting panels of writing on each side, this monument is not as flashy as many that surround it. It is what is written at the very top of the side facing away from the Confederate line that catches the attention of those who stop and take a look. Above the Second Corps trefoil is written “California Regiment.” Californian soldiers were at Gettysburg? Really? Well…….no.

February 28, 2015

Storm Clouds Gather

February 28, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Storm clouds hover over the infamous cupola at Gettysburg's Lutheran Seminary.

February 26, 2015

Reforming a Nation, Saving the Union: The Development of Eastern State Penitentiary

February 26, 2015/ Becca Capobianco

At the turn of the 19th century, the United States’ foremost democratic thinkers were not just focused on refining their government. Instead, they looked widely at the nation and its institutions, agonizing over how to best create a respectable, responsible, republican citizenry. Consequently, the 19th century witnessed a myriad of different reform movements aimed at perfecting every aspect of society. As Americans considered what they should and should not keep from the old systems in Europe, their attention fell quickly to what we would term criminal justice. Prior to the Revolution, the colonies utilized punishments that might look familiar to students of Civil War era military discipline – public shaming, branding, corporal punishment. Prisons were little more than overcrowded holding facilities where the guilty of all ages shared an unregulated space. Understandably, reform-minded observers saw this as a den for breeding criminals rather than an institution that would improve the country.

February 23, 2015

The First Battle of the Civil War? The Battle of Philippi

February 23, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

When asking about the first battle of the Civil War, the expected answer is First Manassas/Bull Run on July 21, 1861. Thus I was stumped by a student last year whose answer was instead the Battle of Philippi. Because it was a smaller engagement, it does not usually hold any real standing in the eyes of historians, but it technically was the first land engagement of the Civil War, occuring on June 3, 1861. Philippi was not of great military importance, but the juncture of the Parkersburg-Grafton Railroad and the Baltimore & Ohio lay 25 miles north at Grafton, connecting the eastern states and the midwest. Robert E. Lee, then in command of all military forces in Virginia, ordered Colonel George Porterfield to recruit a Confederate force in the western countes to hold the rail lines at Grafton. With Virginia's definitive vote for secession and Porterfields destruction of roadways, George McClellan received the green light to move troops and supplies into western Virginia to occupy the area and protect Unionist civilians.

February 16, 2015

The Long and Wild Ride of William Woods Averell

February 16, 2015/ Zac Cowsert

The young second lieutenant stepped out of General Winfield Scott Hancock’s office, having reported for duty and ready for his next assignment—whatever it may be. He didn’t have to wait long. That night, lounging in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in the heart of Washington, D.C., Second Lieutenant William Woods Averell was approached by several United States officers, including Majors Irwin McDowell and Fitz-John Porter. Invited to play a game of pool, William quickly learned that more than billiards was at hand. “While engaged in the game,” Averell recalled, “the Captain quietly asked me where I lodged and requested me to go to my room when the game should be finished and he would follow me.” Meeting surreptitiously in Averell’s hotel room, the officers relayed orders and forced the young officer to memorize them. Helpful suggestions were offered up by those familiar with the area in which Averell would soon be sojourning, and he prepared himself to set out the next day. It was the night of April 16, 1861, and William Woods Averell would soon be headed west across a disintegrating United States.

February 14, 2015

To Bind Up the Nation's Wounds

February 14, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

This statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son, Tad, sits at the Tredegar Iron Works to commemorate Lincoln's April 4, 1865 visit to Richmond just two days after its fall to Union troops...

February 13, 2015

Which Lincoln is Your Lincoln?

February 13, 2015/ Kerry LiBrando

The time I spent working at Ford’s Theatre and President Lincoln’s Cottage exposed me to research that left me with one common-sense conclusion: there were many different Abraham Lincolns. Just like we are one person with old friends from college and another person with our students, people are complex. I do not want anyone to think “Lincoln was such a giant and so iconic, that he must be different than all of us.” On the contrary, Lincoln was very much like us: multi-faceted. Here lies the question: Which Lincoln is your Lincoln? As we set to enter the year 2015 and begin planning commemorative activities for President Lincoln’s assassination I wonder, what do you remember most about his legacy as a person? Could it be Lincoln the Great Emancipator or Lincoln the Lawyer? Better yet, what about Lincoln the Commander in Chief? Two of my personal favorites: Lincoln the Family Man and Lincoln the Theatre Lover.

February 12, 2015

Sculpting the Lincoln Image: The Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore in Popular Memory

February 12, 2015/ Rebekah Oakes

Today, the Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore are two of America’s most famous and highly visible public spaces. An image of the Lincoln Memorial was adopted for the back of the penny in 1959. Mount Rushmore continues to attract around two million visitors per year, despite its remote location. Both landmarks have been used as backdrops for other famous speeches, campaign ads, and even Hollywood films. However, the construction of these landmarks that have become as much a part of the American landscape as the Grand Canyon or Old Faithful were fraught with conflicting ideas, administrative setbacks, and the difficult task of determining whose Lincoln image would be portrayed.

February 10, 2015

Looking for the American Dream: Lincoln Statues in the Great Depression

February 10, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

America is a nation dotted with monuments to its achievements and national heroes. In this theme few individuals have been honored with as many monuments and memorials as Abraham Lincoln. From local and state initiatives to the grand Lincoln Memorial that graces the National Mall, and has become a prime attraction in the United States Capital, Abraham Lincoln is heralded as one of our greatest presidents and a national icon. Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln is also one of the only American figures whose youth is widely commemorated. Even George Washington, the “Father of our Country,” has no statues dedicated to celebrating him as a child. Lincoln is unique in the fact that his childhood remains a critical part of what made him a great national hero. There are under a dozen statues to Lincoln as a youth and they were all completed in the early twentieth-century. Six out of the nine statues were completed in the period between 1930 and 1944, the time of America’s Great Depression; two of these statues are featured here. During the Depression, Abraham Lincoln meant more to the country than a great president, he was a symbol of hope and the American Dream, and in this period Lincoln statuary reflected the attitudes and needs of the American people.

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