July 27, 2015

The Importance of an "Angel": Kirkland at Fredericksburg

July 27, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Fredericksburg is a largely unmonumented battlefield. The most prominent monument on the southern end of the field is the “Meade pyramid” largely inaccessible to most visitors; besides that the remains of earthworks stand as a testament to what once occurred there ornamented by a few cannon the park service has placed to represent their use. There are a few small monuments scattered through the town and up to the heights which mocked the efforts of Union soldiers in 1862. The only large monuments to a body of troops, like those you would expect to see at Gettysburg or Antietam, stand in the National Cemetery, and there are only three of them. But there is one monument so large and prominent that is captures the attention of every visitor who walks down the Sunken Road, and that is the monument to Richard Kirkland.

July 20, 2015

Calls to Arms: "The" Confederate Flag in American Culture

July 20, 2015/ Becca Capobianco

When asked why the American Civil War still holds such power over the American imagination, author Shelby Foote once observed, “because it’s the big one. It measures what we are, good and bad. If you look at American history as the life span of a man, the Civil War represents the great trauma of our adolescence.” More recently, at the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, historian David Blight reflected, “The Civil War is a place we go to ask who we are and what are we becoming…it is our oracle.” The debates that tore the nation apart for four bloody years are eternal questions of the American condition, Blight explained. It is no small wonder then that the symbols of those conflicts remain contested as well, suspended in our national consciousness without a singular definition that holds true over time.

July 09, 2015

The “great battle which would naturally decide the contest”: John Badger Bachelder and the Creation of Gettysburg

July 09, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

The creation of Gettysburg as legend and central turning point of the war and the creation of Gettysburg as a field of monuments centers on one man: John Badger Bachelder. Bachelder was not a Civil War veteran, nor did he ever serve in the military, yet he is the key to answering the question of how Gettysburg came to be what we know today.

July 06, 2015

The Creation of Gettysburg National Cemetery

July 06, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

On July 4th, 1863 Meade’s Union army rejoiced as the sights and sounds of a Confederate army in retreat ensured them of their victory. For the North, Independence Day 1863 was a day of rejoicing and confirmation with victory at both Gettysburg and Vicksburg. But in the midst of victory, July 4th was also sobering for the men who fought around that Pennsylvania town for it was the first chance they had to inspect the battlefield and attend to the dead...The Union soldiers and Gettysburg civilians that looked over the battlefield on July 4th saw a level of death and destruction that was overwhelming and seemingly impossible to take care of.

June 22, 2015

Hidden Gems of Gettysburg

June 22, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

If you are heading to Gettysburg for the anniversary this July or plan to travel there in the future, there is a lot to see! Many visitors utilize the NPS resources and driving tour (which is certainly a good option), but if you want to get off the beaten path here are ten hidden (or less visited) gems of Gettysburg to check out.

June 20, 2015

A Different Side of Stuart

June 20, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Despite JEB Stuart's mixed reputation, he has a prominent monument on Monument Avenue...

June 08, 2015

Slavery? States Rights? Secession.

June 08, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

However, if you listen to the public slavery is one of a variety of answers, and it is not always the answer that comes first or most often. States’ rights is most often put forward as the cause of secession with Lincoln’s election, economic and cultural factors, and the settlement of the west also earning some votes. Scholars and historians may but forward a (mostly) unified answer that slavery was the cause of secession, but the public will not. And Civil War sites have to find ways to work through this divide, because no matter what you interpret at your site or how visitors will always ask the question: “What caused the Civil War?”

May 18, 2015

A Story of Heroism….And Coffee

May 18, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Perhaps the most prominent of the monuments around Burnside’s Bridge at Antietam is not to a regiment who fought there, or indeed any fighting at all. It is a monument to coffee. Well, that and future president William McKinley.

May 14, 2015

Turning the “Gate of Hell” into the “Gate of Heaven”: The Secret Andersonville Death Roll of Dorence Atwater

May 14, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

In late June, Clara received a note from one Dorence Atwater who requested a meeting with her concerning information he had about approximately 13,000 of the missing men she was looking for. Intrigued, Clara visited Atwater at his Washington hotel. Atwater had enlisted at the beginning of the war, even though he was only 16. Captured after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, he was first imprisoned at Belle Isle and then transferred to Andersonville when it opened in February 1864. Impressed by Atwater’s superior penmanship, the commander of Andersonville, General John H. Winder, assigned him to the surgeon’s office with orders to keep an official record of all union prisoners who died and were buried there. The Confederates promised they would turn the roll over to the Union government after the war, but Atwater suspected their sincerity as he experienced the cruelty of the prison and recorded over 100 deaths per day.

May 12, 2015

A Forgotten Anniversary? The Escape and Capture of Jefferson Davis

May 12, 2015/ Kerry LiBrando

The small town of Irwinville, Georgia would become the setting for one of the greatest and perhaps overlooked episodes of the sesquicentennial story. In a piece announcing the victorious capture of Davis in Harper’ Weekly, a Union officer commented on the night of May 11, 1865, “a fight ensued, both parties exhibiting the greatest determination…the captors report that he (Davis) hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses and started for the woods, closely followed by our men, who at first thought him a woman, but seeing his boots while he was running, they suspected his sex at once.” And so begins the legend of Davis the cross-dresser.

May 02, 2015

Twilight over Barlow's Knoll

May 02, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Twilight falls over Barlow's Knoll at Gettysburg, putting the statue of Brigadier General Francis Barlow in stark relief to the dimming sunset...

April 16, 2015

The Red Badge of Courage and the 124th NY

April 16, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage borders between classic literature and Civil War battle narrative. In his unique style, he writes stories of battle without specifying names. In The Red Badge of Courage most characters are not distinguished by name, nor does Crane specify what part of the battlefield, what troops, or what actions he is writing about. He purposely avoids using real characters and creates a fictional regiment (the 304th New York Infantry) in order to focus the audience’s attention on the experience of the protagonist, Private Henry Fleming, and his comrades as they face their first battle. The purpose of the books was to engage readers in the chaos, emotion, and uncertainty of battle and the experiences of a common soldier within the maelstrom.

April 13, 2015

Sesquicentennial Spotlight: After Appomattox

April 13, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Now that the 150th anniversary of Appomattox has passed, the Civil War sesquicentennial is over, right? Not quite.

Most Americans consider Appomattox the end of the war; that was certainly what I was taught in school when I was younger. However, Robert E. Lee’s surrender is only the beginning of the end. When Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox he surrendered only the men under his command, not the entire military force of the Confederate States of America.

April 09, 2015

“To See What Freedom Meant:” April 9, 1865 (Sesquicentennial Spotlight)

April 09, 2015/ Becca Capobianco

Much has been made of the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Historians note that myth surrounds those final bedraggled days of the Army of Northern Virginia, the magnanimity with which Union soldiers welcomed their fellow Americans back into a nation at peace, and the causes won and lost in the subsequent years. Though it took months for the rest of the remaining Confederate forces to surrender their arms, no moment stands more clearly in historical memory as marking the end of the United States’ most costly war than the meeting in which Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces to Ulysses Grant. While myth may obscure some of the more concrete realities of that day – what was with Wilmer McClean anyway? – the peace wrought by those two great generals was nothing short of remarkable both for what it ended and what it began.

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.

January 01, 2015

The Blue and Gray in Black and White: The Media’s Portrayal of Veterans during the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

January 01, 2015/ Rebekah Oakes

“There’s Still Life in the Old Boys Yet!,” a newspaper article emphatically exclaimed. An accompanying photograph portrayed Union veteran Tim Flaherty, well into his nineties, dancing a jig for his comrades. The year was 1938, the July heat sweltering, and the final grand reunion of the blue and gray well underway. Seventy-five years after the battle of Gettysburg, 1,845 veterans were able to reach the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania to once more commemorate the defining four years of their generation.

However, this reunion was different than the others.

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