NPS Trip Planner

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Eireann

The National Park System has created a new Civil War portal, with a map tool that allows you to create a route for sesquicentennial holidaying. It seems promising, but in my opinion needs some refinement. Independent sites are available, but major and minor sites are given equal stature, so it’s difficult to zoom in on, say, Virginia, and gauge which of the hundreds of homes and museums are worth seeing.

The most impressive feature that Litterst shared during a lightning-fast demonstration was the site’s “Plan Your Visit” tool, which includes more than 1,700 Civil War sites around the country, including more than 100 national parks with lore from the War Between the States. In seconds, this interactive mapping gizmo enables user to build itineraries linking National Park Service spots with state and privately Civil War-themed historic sites and museums. The tool provides maps, driving distances, turn-by-turn directions, site descriptions, and links to more information about each place…

Once you’ve built your itinerary, you can print it, tweet it, post it to Facebook, or share it via a variety of other web and social-media sites.

via Cool Trip Planner is Part of NPS Civil War 150 Site – Past Is Prologue.

Lincoln Giveth, and Lincoln Taketh Away

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Eireann

If you’re an American reading this, your income taxes are due today. Lincoln, of course, famously instituted the income tax into law, but did you know that your two day “tax holiday” this year is due to Abe as well? Turns out DC shuts down for Emancipation Day, which commemorates an event most of us have long forgotten: The purchased emancipation of DC’s slaves, in 1862. Harold Holzer wrote this nifty little summary, and it’s worth a read. (Assuming, of course, you haven’t got taxes to finish… or start?)

So the future “Great Emancipator” kept the D.C. freedom bill on his desk, unsigned, for two long days – delaying, he confided, until one Kentucky congressman could spirit his own aged servants back to his home state, where slavery remained lawful. This very newspaper reported “turbulence and disorder” throughout Washington, with “slave-hunters chasing up their dark-skinned chattels, to remove them, into Maryland and Virginia” before emancipation could be approved…

Yet the mere fact that a Congress and a president had worked together to end generations of pro-slavery tradition somewhere resonated with breathtaking power in April 1862. No doubt the excitement owed much to the venue: the national capital. It did not seem to matter that only 3,000 were liberated in Washington while millions remained in chains nationwide. As Frederick Douglass predicted: “Kill slavery at the heart of the nation, and it will certainly die at the extremities. This looks small, but it is not so. It is a giant stride toward the grand result.”

Tax holiday inspired by freedom – Philly.com.

Ford’s Theater Expansion

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Eireann

Today is the anniversary of Lincoln’s death, the process of which started the night before at Ford’s Theater, and ended across the street at the Petersen House. This year, both events and locations have been commemorated in a newly expanded museum housed in the building adjoining the House Where Lincoln Died.

Wait a minute, you might think. Education and leadership? The Civil War is barely over. Lincoln is dead. The nation is in shock. How do we get from there to a “center for education and leadership”? I have questions about that, but before exploring the quirks of contemporary commemoration, it is worth paying tribute to what has been accomplished. Lincoln has long been at the heart of the capital city: the National Mall is an affirmation of the Union he championed, the Lincoln Memorial on one end, and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial on the other. But there was, until recently, no extensive exhibition here about Lincoln and his times. Ford’s Theater, Mr. Tetreault explained, used to be a brief stopping point.

Now, with these exhibitions, Lincoln has found a home in a place best known for his death. With the historian Richard Norton Smith as adviser, and displays designed by Split Rock Studios and Northern Light Productions, Mr. Tetreault has given visitors a grounding in the history of Lincoln’s time, a sense of the melodrama of his murder and an affirmation of Lincoln’s influence.

The biography is omitted — for that you should visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., which turns his life into a series of special effects and tableaus — and his ideas could be more fervently explored, but there may be no better survey of Lincoln than the one offered here. The emphasis is not on artifacts, though you can see the ring of keys found on Booth’s body and other objects. But the exhibition succeeds because of a careful narrative, well-chosen images and informative touch screens; the new completes the old.

I keep putting off my trip to Washington, and keep finding articles like this chastising me and reminding that this is a bad decision!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/arts/design/lincolns-legacy-at-expanded-fords-theater-complex.html?_r=1

Volck at the NPG

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Eireann

If – like me – you’re planning a visit to DC during this 1862 sesquicentennial year, be sure to add the National Portrait Gallery to your must-sees. In addition to an exhibition of Brady’s portraits of the Union generals, there’s a collection of Adalbert Volck etchings on display.

A Volck lithograph was reproduced in the very first Civil War book I was ever given, and his clean, line-drawn caricatures and wicked sense of humour immediately caught my attention. I’m excited to see what’s on view.

A dentist by trade, Volck served the Southern cause in a myriad of ways, including smuggling medical supplies to Virginia across the Potomac River. However, Volck’s most significant contribution to the Confederate cause was his production of pictorial propaganda that vilified Lincoln, abolitionists and Union soldiers in his publication Sketches from the Civil War in North America.

via The National Portrait Gallery/Exhibitions/The Confederate Sketches of Adalbert Volck.

Putting the “Cents” in Sesquicentennial

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Eireann

As one who never carries cash, it’s rare for me even to see Canadian quarters, so I don’t expect to find any of these in my change.

Nifty commemorations, though I’m not sure about the artwork, which is a little plain. (Still, it beats this old Isle of Man 20P, whose face an old friend described as “cars leaving pub parking lot.”)

U.S. Mint to Release Gettysburg and Vicksburg Quarters in 2011 | Iron Brigader.

John Hartford’s Shiloh

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Eireann

150 years ago today, the war changed irrevocably. Seeing the elephant was a kind of Scared Straight for the Western armies and the nation in general. No more would the boys pretend at playing soldiers, and gone were the thoughts of a swift end to the conflict.

I thought it fitting to commemorate the anniversary with a John Hartford song. The song is hard to trace – best I can tell is it’s a Mexican War song that was updated. Regardless, it’s my favourite war song, and I thought its jaunty tone and prescient lyrics would be a good way to mark the day a lot of similarly innocent boys became men.

Shadows of History Exhibit

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Eireann

Civil War buffs in Washington, DC have another month and a half to partake in the Corcoran Gallery’s Shadows of History exhibition.

The photographs capture a wide range of subjects, from geographical views, landscapes, and portraits of soldiers and officers at rest, to the death and destruction in the aftermath of battles. Photographs by George Barnard, Issac H. Bonsall, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, James F. Gibson, Frederick F. Gutekunst, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Andrew J. Russell, D. B. Woodbury, and others, are included. A special emphasis of the collection is rare imagery of African American regiments and their underappreciated role in the war.

That’s quite the roll call of photographers, and the Colored Troops shots would be fascinating. I think I’ve seen the same 5 USCT photos a hundred times!

Shadows of History - Corcoran Gallery of Art

http://www.corcoran.org/shadows_history/index.php

A Grateful Nation

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Eireann

When I search the web for Civil War related items, I often come across small town papers whose “news” isn’t really newsworthy. This piece stood out, though, for the wonderful sentiments behind it, and because of the email from the Whitman Archive researcher that inspired yesterday’s post.

We’re in an economy troubled enough that museums are strapped, historical sites are threatened by development, and bankrupt states can’t find the funds for Sesquicentennial celebrations. Yet there are plenty of people out there who continue to do their utmost to usher others into a love of history, through their passion and effort and sheer goodheartedness. It’s worth sacrificing a blog post to tip our digital cap to the docents, curators, reenactors, interpreters, researchers and historians who keep our understanding of and interest in the war fresh and alive.

Get out there and check out the Museum of Culpeper History’s new exhibit, and when you do, be sure to thank the many volunteers that made it possible.

Architectural conservator Chris Mills deserves our thanks and a pat on the back for his painstaking work uncovering Civil War-era signatures, drawings and scribbling in and around Brandy Station’s Graffiti House.

Mills has been working 10 hours a day to find and protect clues into some of the Civil War’s most recognizable characters, such as J.E.B Stuart.

It’s obviously a labor of love for Mills, as trying to preserve ancient graffiti can’t be easy. Historians like Mills and countless others involved with the Museum of Culpeper History provide a valuable public service, and they all deserve our grattitude.

(I can’t resist a poke at the paper’s typo of “grattitude”. To paraphrase Sherman, historical glory is to be thanked for our field of service, and to have the acknowledgement spelled wrong in the newspapers.)

http://www2.starexponent.com/news/2012/feb/05/our-view-thank-those-preserve-history-ar-1664547/

Civil War Photographs: Places

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Eireann

The Atlantic Monthly is doing a bang-up job on its sesquicentennial coverage. Interesting discussions, regular features, a special issue, and what appears to be a series of photo galleries. Even better, they’ve posted the photos in large sizes (including an option to view them in an even larger format!), so you can spot details in familiar photos that went unnoticed before. There are a lot of winners in this bunch, but I loved this one of the Monitor’s turret, showing what little effect a solid shot had on the “cheesebox”.

Shot damage on the Monitor's turret.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/02/the-civil-war-part-1-the-places/100241/

Civilians During Wartime

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Eireann

“Free Jazz” is a phrase that doesn’t much stir my enthusiasm, and I admit I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but it’s an interesting news item to note, and besides – I’m sure there are readers for whom “Free Jazz” inspires the same kind of heart-throbs that “fluffy kittens” or “Tecumseh Sherman” do for me. (I’m a girl of varied tastes, what can I say? If they ever uncover a tintype of Sherman holding fluffy kittens I might shatter every window in Toronto with my high pitched squealing.)

The six new compositions in this concert give voice to the thoughts and feelings of the mothers, brothers, civilian spies, and runaway slaves all living in the war but rarely seeing the battle field. The tone of these compositions reflects the anxieties and fears of a population living in an unforeseeable future.

Jazz pianist Dave Burrell, with violin accompaniment, presents a Civil War-themed programme commissioned by the Rosenbach Museum & Library. The link below has the entire hour-plus performance embedded if, well, y’know… “Fluffy kittens”.

http://www.rosenbach.org/learn/artists/projects/civilians-during-wartime

The Civil War Podcast

Resources and discussion on the War Between the States

Tag Archives: sesquicentennial