Duffel Blog provides Civil War satire

If you follow the US military and the blogging world that surrounds it, you may have visited Duffel Blog. This site presents all the hilarity and wit of the legendary satire publication The Onion, but with emphasis on the armed forces and veterans, to provide members and supporters of the armed forces a bit of levity in trying times. I have enjoyed several pieces from this blog in the past and a recent one was no different.

With all the controversy surrounding the status of the “Confederate flag” (predominantly dealing with the battle flag design) in the wake of the tragic murders in Charleston at the hand of a deranged white supremacist, there have been hundreds of stories relating to symbols of the Confederacy and its military and political leaders. Duffel Blog decided to jump into the fray by writing about West Point revoking the diplomas of graduates who went on to serve the Confederacy. This “story” follows an earlier posting regarding efforts to rename Army installations named for Confederate generals.

Both of these pieces are amusing, but also thought-provoking, as they force us to consider the broader role of the war on our society. Clearly, Duffel Blog is responding to the controversies surrounding Confederate symbols with tongue-in-cheek humor designed to make us reflect on the absurdity of the reactionary nature of our times. They are also aware that a sizable portion of their audience is likely Southern and is in the cross hairs of this debate. That said, they also make one reflect upon the careers of the Confederate military leadership when viewed against the backdrop of American military history. Further, they speak to attempts to reconcile the two regions after the war by naming the installations for these men.

That said, I doubt that West Point will be revoking diplomas of former Confederates anytime soon, as the Academy knows that, despite their switched allegiance during the war, many of these men had distinguished antebellum careers in the Army, with Robert E. Lee being among the most prominent. Whatever your stance on the symbols of the Confederacy and how they are used and displayed, I invite you to read the two Duffel Blog posts, chuckle a bit, and allow yourself a moment to breathe and reflect, as more of that would certainly benefit this ongoing debate.

LSU Press Civil War Titles 40% Off Until June 25

Baton Rouge—Hundreds of fascinating Civil War titles can be yours at a 40% discount until June 25. This offer includes classic hardcover and paperback titles, as well as new releases like Alfred C. Young III’s “Lee’s Army during the Overland Campaign” with a foreword by Gordon C. Rhea. For the Civil War buff and historian this is a great opportunity to affordably deepen your understanding and broaden your library. Through this offer only you can also buy the newly released, commemorative boxed set “Generals in Blue and Gray” at 20% off! Visit www.lsupress.org to discover more Civil War titles at up to 40% off. Order online at http://bit.ly/LSUPCW or call 800.848.6224 and use the code 04CIVILWAR.

This limited-time offer includes titles like “Lincoln and McCellan at War” by Chester G. Hearn, Mark Stegmaier’s “Henry Adams in the Secession Crisis,” and new releases like David C. Keehn’s “Knights of the Golden Circle” and Linda Barnickel’s “Milliken’s Bend.”  Visit our site through this link to explore more titles: http://bit.ly/LSUPCW.

All purchases require immediate payment and are non-refundable and cannot be combined with any other offers. Excludes reference titles.

Watch “Rebel” tonight at 10PM ET/9PM CT

I just viewed this production that is part of the PBS series Voces, which deals with Latino figures. Rebel tells the story of Loreta Velazquez, a Cuban-American, who served as a soldier in the Confederate Army, later to serve as a spy for the Union. Her story, largely forgotten for much of the post-war years is one of the more unique in the long list of women who served in the military on both sides in the Civil War.

Velazquez’s story begins with her childhood in Cuba, where she attempted to defy traditional gender stereotypes, much to the chagrin of her parents, including her doting father. Concerned for her future and seeking to mold her into a “proper” young woman, Loreta was sent to New Orleans in 1849, where she blended into the unique society of the city, being viewed as white instead of Hispanic, which was important in post-Mexican War America.

Further defying conventions, Velazquez eloped with an American Army officer, known as William, much to the disappointment of her family. She followed William to various military postings, until William left the Army upon secession, joining the Confederate Army. William later died in the war, while Loreta also joined, taking the name Henry T. Buford. After supposedly fighting at Bull Run, she took to spying for the Confederacy, then rejoined the Army, fighting at Fort Donelson and Shiloh. Later in the war, she served the Union cause as a spy.

After the war, she wrote her memoir The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velázquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T Buford, Confederate States Army, which is the source of controversy in the historiography on the war. Her account shattered the “Lost Cause” mythology surrounding Confederate soldiers, as she described them as boorish and ungentlemanly. Her writing raised the ire of Jubal Early, who was influential in the early historiography from the southern perspective on the war. Due to this controversy, her story was largely erased from the history and memory on the war.

Through Rebel, director Maria Agui Carter attempts to draw out the true story of Velazquez and her contribution to the larger understanding of the Civil War. Complete with a cast of academics crossing several fields and disciplines, gripping cinematography, and a unique story, Rebel is worth viewing on your local PBS station and will enlighten and entertain those interested in the Civil War, spies, women’s history, or Latino history.

Check out the site for the documentary here, and buy Velazquez’s book here.

How the Civil War Changed Our Lives – AARP

Though one would not think of the AARP website as having much to do with the war, they posted an interesting reflective piece on how the Civil War changed the lives of Americans.

Echoes of the nation’s greatest fight — the Civil War — still reverberate from coast to coast.

Some ring strong: of course the end of slavery, perhaps the worst disgrace in the nation’s history. And the 620,000 ancestors lost. Other vestiges have weakened with the passage of time but are no less legacies of the four horrific, heroic years that shaped us as one nation.Here are eight ways the Civil War indelibly changed us and how we live:

1. We have ambulances and hospitals.

The Civil War began during medieval medicine’s last gasp and ended at the dawn of modern medicine. Each side entered the war with puny squads of physicians trained by textbook, if at all. Four years later, legions of field-tested doctors, well-versed in anatomy, anesthesia and surgical practice, were poised to make great medical leaps.

The nation’s first ambulance corps, organized to rush wounded soldiers to battlefront hospitals and using wagons developed and deployed for that purpose, was created during the Civil War. The idea was to collect wounded soldiers from the field, take them to a dressing station and then transport them to the field hospital.

Doctors laid out the hospitals as camps divided into well-defined wards for specific activities such as surgery and convalescence. Women flocked to serve these hospitals as nurses.

Before the war, most people received health care at home. After the war, hospitals adapted from the battlefront model cropped up all over the country. The ambulance and nurses’ corps became fixtures, with the Civil War’s most famous nurse, Clara Barton, going on to establish the American Red Cross. Today’s modern hospital is a direct descendant of these first medical centers.

How the Civil War Changed Our Lives – AARP.

Civil War Medicine – Advances and the Rise of the Amputee

The Civil War saw a great number of casualties and as doctors struggled to keep up with the number of wounded soldiers they slowly learned better ways to deal with injuries from experience and need.  The Civil War saw the beginnings of reconstructive and plastic surgery as well as advances in the treatment of chest wounds which became standard medical practice.  Battlefield surgeons learned the hard way and many advances came out of the horrors of war.

According to Chip Rowe in an article entitled 5 Medical Innovations of the Civil War, it was the shortage of supplies for the Confederates that led to the invention of an anaesthetic inhaler that allowed surgeons to use much less chloroform per patient.

Battlefield wounds were often very complex with canons and Minnie balls fragmenting bones and leaving irregular wounds in flesh that were subject to infection.  And lying unattended, sometimes for hours, on a dirty battlefield was not conducive to keeping wounds clean.  This is where amputations came in.

A soldier with a leg mangled by a canon shot had a much better chance of surviving if his leg was amputated right away before infection set in.  Battlefield surgeons did not have time to deal with complex injuries in mangled limbs and even if they performed what was termed a resection the risk of infection for this sort of injury was very high.  If infection set in and they were forced to amputate later the risk of the infection spreading was much higher.  According to Terry L. Jones in his article on Civil War medicine, Under the Knife, amputations performed right away, or primary amputations, had a mortality rate of only 25% whereas amputating later when a limb became infected had mortality rates twice as high.

So, amputation became a life-saving procedure on Civil War battlefields with experienced surgeons learning the best way to perform an amputation.  They made the cut as far from the heart as possible. The lower on a limb the amputation was made the more likely the patient was to survive.  Surgeons then tried to remove the nerves as high up as possible to avoid pain in the remaining portion of the limb.  This meant that transportation of the wounded patient was less torturous and the amputee had a better chance of feeling less pain wearing a prosthetic.

Due to the large increase in amputees during and after the war, better prosthetics became a huge concern.  From generals to poor foot soldiers nobody was safe from wounds or amputations.  Major General Richard S. Ewell lost his leg at the Battle of Groveton and after his recovery he returned to command with a wooden leg.  For others the loss of a leg changed their lives.

Major General Daniel E. Sickles lost his leg to a canon at Gettysburg in a fierce assault by the Confederates on his line.  Although there is some controversy over the strategy of Sickles who disobeyed orders in his placement of troops at Gettysburg, many Union generals with worse track records were kept around.  Civil War Historian, Craig Wilson, expressed in an interview his belief that the loss of Sickles’ leg, and the other injuries sustained, helped him avoid a court martial for his controversial tactics.  It is impossible to tell what the outcome of such a court martial would have been, whether he would have been branded insubordinate or exonerated for his actions.  What is certain is that Grant would not allow Sickles to return to command and some combination of the controversial tactics and serious injuries saw the end of his military career.  Sickles entered the world of politics and among a number of fascinating exploits he decided to donate his leg to a museum.  For several years after the donation he would return to visit his leg there on the anniversary of the amputation.

Less well-known than Sickles, yet equally important is the first amputee of the Civil War, James E. Hanger.  It would seem that James was simply not destined to fight.  He was too young to join the Confederate Army when the war started so he joined an ambulance group to follow a unit and try to join later.  He enlisted at Phillipi on June 2, 1861 and according to an article by Martha M. Boltz in the Washington Times, he was injured the very next day in his first skirmish.  He lost his leg on June 3 becoming the first amputee of the Civil War.  That in itself is interesting but James is even more remarkable because of his response to the amputation.

James was given a wooden leg but since his amputation had been above the knee he had very limited mobility with the wooden prosthetic.  After a stint as a prisoner he was exchanged and allowed to return home.  There he locked himself in his room and refused to come out.  His patient and worried mother brought him food and the materials he occasionally asked for and he left empty plates and wood shavings outside of his door.  As the weeks passed James’ family worried that he was falling into a deep depression.  However, James was not depressed; he was single-mindedly fashioning a more workable prosthetic.  He shaved barrel staves and willow wood to form a double jointed prosthetic.  It took about three months but when he was finished he opened the door to his room, walked down the stairs and amazed his family with a workable leg that restored both his balance and movement.

James filed for a number of patents for his first prosthetic leg as well as his subsequently improved models.  The boy who was not destined to fight in the Civil War spent the rest of the war dedicated to creating better and better prosthetics.  Thanks to James E. Hanger and many other talented and dedicated inventors the Civil War saw great advancements towards the first truly functioning prosthetics.

Now with technology continuing to advance in leaps and bounds there are some amazing possibilities for prosthetics for modern wounded soldiers.  As soldiers continue to return home from recent wars with missing limbs the need for advanced prosthetics is only growing.  With recent technology it is now possible to have a prosthetic leg 3-d printed for you.  Bespoke Innovations is a company that custom prints legs for amputees out of any material they wish and in a variety of custom designs.  You can take a look at their amazing gallery here.

Technology seems to be moving us closer and closer to having truly bionic body parts.  Computer technology has allowed us to create The Michelangelo Microprocessor Hand.  It uses a microprocessor chip that picks up the electrical impulses from your muscles and translates it into motion working very similarly to a real hand.  It allows people missing a hand to use a knife and fork, turn pages, and pick up small objects again.  Recently bionics have been all over the news with Rex, the bionic man, who is made entirely of bionic organ systems and parts.  The hope is that Rex will be the model for creating such systems to help people with failing organs.

Modern scientists and inventors are following in James E. Hanger’s footsteps and trying to restore as much movement and ability to amputees as possible.  While learning to adjust to a missing limb is always going to be difficult hopefully the modern advances in prosthetics will help.  There was nothing nice about losing a limb during the Civil War but modern technology has made some of the bionic parts and prosthetic replacements exciting in their own right.  Hopefully these and further advancements will restore a dignity and pride to amputees that previous prosthetics could not.

Civil War ring comes full circle

Civil War ring comes full circle.

A soldier’s ring, lost 148 years ago in Virginia during the Civil War, came home to Reading on Tuesday with a touching ceremony in Charles Evans Cemetery.

Worn by Levi Schlegel, a Rockland Township native who served under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battle of Appomattox Court House, the ring is believed to have been lost at an encampment near Fredericksburg. Victorious Union troops made camp there as they returned to Washington for the Grand Review of the Armies at the war’s end.

John Blue, a hunter of Civil War relics, found the ring in 2005, and through a series of circumstances, he was able to return it to Ernie Schlegel of Reading, a distant cousin of Levi.

Read the full article here.

Battlefields of the Civil War-An awesome interactive map tool

Hat tip to my good friend Dr. Laura Munski, who shared this interesting site, created by ESRI, who produces the software ArcGIS, which is used for GIS, cartography, and many other uses. They also have a series of sites, called Story Maps, which all look interesting (yes, I am into geography as well as history).

The Story Map on the Civil War is quite interesting, as it highlights battles, in chronological order, offers the user the chance to narrow the range, and, it animates the battle sites on the base map. One great feature is the linking to the battle sites through the Civil War Trust, who links to this site. Civil War Trust is a pretty cool site for learning about the war, and battlefield preservation. It also has a page for smartphone apps (if you are able to enjoy that technology).

If you have some time, check out this great resource, especially if you are a teacher, as I can see the value of this in the classroom.

Click here for Battlefields of the Civil War.

Portraits of Wounded Bodies: Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866

If you are in the vicinity of Yale University, consider checking this exhibit out. I do want to warn that some of these images are quite graphic and show the horrors of war. To view the online images, click here.

Portraits of Wounded Bodies:  Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866

January 16th-April 1st, 2013

Tours open to all on Wed. Jan. 23rd, 4 p.m., and Friday Jan. 25th at noon!

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Civil War raged throughout the United States, creating thousands of casualties.  On view now, the Medical Historical Library explores Civil War medicine through the haunting photographs of wounded soldiers.  Curated by Heidi Knoblauch, a doctoral student in Yale’s Section of the History of Medicine, and Melissa Grafe, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, selections from a set of 93 photographic portraits from Harewood Hospital, Washington D.C. are on display in the Rotunda of the Medical Library.  These images, some quite graphic, depict soldiers recovering from a variety of wounds, including gunshot wounds.  The soldiers’ case histories and stories, analyzed by Heidi Knoblauch, are part of a larger examination of medical photography and Civil War memory as America commemorates the 150th anniversary of the war.  In the foyer of Sterling Hall, the exhibit expands to include a larger discussion of Civil War medicine and surgery, including hospitals and nurses, using images and materials from the Medical Historical Library.  An online version of the Harewood Hospital photographs is available in the Digital Library of the Medical Historical Library.

This exhibit is on display at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, 333 Cedar Street. For more information, contact Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, at melissa.grafe@yale.edu.

Lose the Lost Cause by David Patten

I was contacted by Mr. Patten, who asked me to post his essay considering the topic of the “Lost Cause” and its level of influence on our understanding of the war since its conclusion. I know that this may spark some vigorous discussion and debate, as this is a subject that historians have argued over for well over one hundred years. I hope you will all give Mr. Patten’s essay consideration and thought.

LOSE THE LOST CAUSE

BY

DAVID PATTEN

As we journey through the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and with the release of the movie Lincoln, and particularly with the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation upon us, Americans have been well motivated to deeply assess every aspect of the time period that tore our nation apart. While we ponder those times and analyze why our nation plunged into such strife, we will, as always, be exposed to the continuing drumbeats of the “Lost Cause”. Southerners, and many Northerners alike, will regale us with the noble reasons that actually motivated eleven states to secede. We will be told that they were fighting for their liberties and for their proud heritage. The Southern states, in fact, stood up to an overreaching, draconian national government bent on crushing individual freedoms and destroying states’ rights.

Have I missed any of the other lies the “Lost Cause” might tell? The lies actually never seem to end. They started just after the smoke cleared from the battlefields that revealed Southern defeat and they continue to this very day. Only now, they are magnified by the moment.

One issue dominated the politics of the Civil War time period and everything else spun off of that issue. The issue of racially specific slavery caused the Civil War and the “Lost Cause” revisionists, from 1865 to the present, cannot change or sanitize the true reason for Southern secession. Can any of us today honestly imagine our nation splitting apart in 1861 had there been no slavery? What other issue or issues so captivated the imaginations of the people back then that could have caused the Union’s destruction? Only one issue had that kind of power and anything else anyone could cite would be a mere corollary. Even a cursory reading of the thoughts of the Southern leadership exposes their obsession with the issue of slavery. Dig deeper and their obsession over that singular horror becomes pathological.

Jefferson Davis lauded slavery as a great institution through which “a superior race” changed “brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers…worth thousands of millions of dollars.” He proclaimed that “the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable” and he bridled at any attempt to interfere with that system or limit its extension.

Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy’s Vice President, declared that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.” In addition, he unequivocally stated that slavery “was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”

State after Confederate state declared in their “secession resolutions” that slavery was the primary cause of their departure. Mississippi summed it up best, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.” “There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union…”

The Confederate Constitution enshrined slavery and forbade its states and territories from banning it or interfering with its spread. In addition, Section 9 of the document extended the same prohibitions to the national government, “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in Negro slaves shall be passed.” As a result, there was no avoiding slavery in the C.S.A., not even through secession, for curiously, no such right was provided. In effect, the Southern leaders created exactly what they wanted; a slaveholding nation well insulated against those who would seek to alter or abolish the peculiar institution.

Northerners of the time period were hardly confused as to the origin of the conflict. Lincoln unlocked the deep non-mystery in his Second Inaugural Address, “All knew that this interest (slavery) was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war…”

In his memoirs, Grant came right to the point, “The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.”

The Confederate dream of an exclusive slaveholding nation crashed in 1865. But, out of the ashes of Confederate defeat emerged a victory of sorts; it was the “Lost Cause”. History is supposedly written by the winners, but not this time. Rebel writers such as Edward Pollard, Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis, and so many others seized control of the narrative and transformed the ugliness of the slaveholding cause into a fight for liberty and rights. Both the Confederate journalist Edward Pollard and the former Vice President Alexander Stephens began their assault on history directly after the war was over. Slavery ceased to be an issue. Rather, valiant struggles for freedom by gallant Southern cavaliers facing overwhelming odds became the norm. Davis waited a few years, but then in 1881, he joined the club with his memoirs, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. In volume one, he wrote, “The truth remains intact and incontrovertible, that the existence of African servitude was in no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident.” Views such as these found enormous audiences and sparked a tidal wave of historical distortion that tragically gained acceptance.

One Southerner wasn’t fooled by any of it. Colonel John S. Mosby, arguably the finest partisan raider the Confederacy produced stated, “The South went to war on account of slavery.” He found the “Lost Cause” sentiment repulsive and wrote, “I never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery.” But then he added something very interesting, “After the fight is over they invent some fanciful theory on which they imagine that they fought.”

Now we see the “Lost Cause” fully exposed. With slavery abolished upon the ruin of the South and labeled as the filth that it was, how then do the losers cope? Looking at the reality of the war, the South endured destruction on a scale few could ever have imagined, and for what? They shed blood and lost all defending a system of horror and disgust, thus myth became their only refuge. Given their situation, the so glorious, so holy “Lost Cause” could have turned out so no other way.

We now have the perfect opportunity to set things straight and see the conflict as it truly was. Only time will now tell if we can finally put the “Lost Cause” myth away and face the brutal truth of our past while celebrating the new birth of freedom that gave meaning to all the destruction.

Review of Death and the Civil War

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you all that American Experience on PBS will be airing a documentary by Ric Burns (younger brother of filmmaker Ken Burns) entitled Death and the Civil War on Tuesday, September 18 at 8:00PM Eastern Time. The airing is timely, as it will be just after the 150th anniversary of the bloodiest single-day battle in American history with the Battle of Antietam on September 17.

This film, based upon Drew Gilpin Faust’s landmark work This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008), illustrated how the Civil War changed how Americans on both sides of the conflict perceived death. Prior to the war, influenced by the religious revival of the Second Great Awakening, people believed in the concept of a “good death”, which involved dying at home, surrounded by loved ones, at peace and ready to go, and possibly and offering of last words to friends and family. This death was rooted in Christian tradition emerging in the nation through the early 19th century, where a new belief in a corporeal heaven, gained wide acceptance by the eve of war. This belief held that the deceased will gain a renewed body upon entering heaven and will reunite with loved ones who passed on before them, as well as the surviving relatives and friends when they die, with all living in everlasting peace and harmony with God.

As the war’s cruel reality shattered notions of a short, relatively bloodless conflict, Americans faced a new concept of death, as hundreds, and soon thousands, of young men were slaughtered in their prime, unable to enjoy the tranquility and dignity of a “good death”. Soldiers soon adapted to this changing circumstance and created the same conditions, in a modified fashion, for their dying comrades. The men were surrounded by photographs of loved ones, their army friends, and were able, when possible, die in relative peace. The deceased’s comrades also took on the unenviable task of notifying loved ones of the demise of the soldier, as well as arranging for shipment of effects and, if able, the body.

This documentary did an outstanding job of analyzing the harsh situation facing the nation in the early years of the war, that stands in stark contrast to how our nation treats the war dead today. Before and during the early years of the war, the federal government did not bear responsibility for identifying, accounting for, and treating its war dead. The result was that many dead were not identified initially, being buried in graves marked “Unknown”. Further, the government had no way of effective notification of casualties, with relatives relying upon the casualty reports in local papers, which could be inaccurate, creating increased anxiety among people as to the fate of their loved one serving, whether they were dead or not. Death was exacerbated by the lack of an ambulance corps, preventing early evacuation of wounded, which caused many to linger on the battlefield, dying of their wounds, without the comfort of the “good death”.

The film revolved around several themes: dying, burial, emotions around death, memorializing, identifying, and slavery. Each of these themes was well treated. Slavery was quite interesting, as the African-American experience with death was quite different through the horrors of slavery, which created a higher mortality possibility for them than whites. They created their own concept of the “good death”, which involved dying in the struggle for freedom. What was interesting to consider was that the historians involved in the film argued that contraband camps, where escaped slaves were initially housed, represented one of the first American examples of refugee camps, where conditions were quite harsh and fostered a higher mortality.

Beyond the overall content of the documentary, there were several things that stood out for me in this piece. One was the early mention of the casualty figure of 750,000, which is based upon new research that appeared in the journal Civil War History (December 2011), that is still gaining acceptance in the scholarly community and will take years to gain full recognition. The use of the figure will go far in terms of generating wider acceptance of the new calculations of just how many died in the war.

In addition to the use of new casualty figures, the story of 19th century methods of embalming and the role photographers played in bringing the savagery of death on the battlefield to Americans’ homes. Further, commemorating the dead, both through establishing national cemeteries and creating Memorial Day (on both sides of the Mason-Dixon) was an important subject. It was quite interesting to consider that without the Civil War, we likely would not have the system of national cemeteries, let alone an accounting of our war dead, at least as we know it. The story of Charleston blacks burying deceased Union POW’s from the racetrack prison camp and leading a commemoration ceremony and parade with Union forces in early May 1865 represented one of the earliest occurrences of what we know as Memorial Day.

With an all-star cast of historians and commentators, including Drew Gilpin Faust, Vincent Brown, David W. Blight, and George Will among others, Ric Burns has crafted a masterful documentary in the vein of his brother’s The Civil War. It combines the use of photographs, filmed scenes, and stirring narration, including powerful and emotional examples from the primary sources of the war, the writings of the people experiencing the war themselves. While Faust’s book is an important read and I urge everyone to read it, Death and the Civil War is a must-see documentary that illustrates the transformative effect of the war on our nation in the midst of its 150th anniversary.

150th anniversary of the siege of Fort Abercrombie

From the Grand Forks Herald:

Fort Abercrombie: On 150th anniversary, a look back at a bloody clash

By: Patrick Springer, Grand Forks Herald

FARGO – The first hint of trouble came to Fort Abercrombie on a tranquil summer day when word arrived that the Dakota Sioux in Minnesota were ripe for an uprising.

It was unwelcome news for a military post whose new commander had recently discovered was stocked with ammunition that was the wrong caliber for the soldiers’ muskets.

Also, since the fort wasn’t yet protected by a stockade or blockhouses, the soldiers scrambled to build defensive breastworks of earth and timber to surround the key buildings comprising the post.

Help was 227 miles away, at Fort Snelling, and the nearest community of any size was more than 150 miles away, in St. Cloud.

Click here to read the rest of the article

Author’s Note:  I will be taking part in the commemoration this Saturday, portraying a soldier, so if you are in the area, come on down to the fort and check out the program, as it looks to be pretty good. I will also share my thoughts on the event and the actual siege over the weekend.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Presents Death and the Civil War

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Presents Death and the Civil War

Premieres Tuesday, September 18, 2012

8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS

From acclaimed filmmaker Ric Burns, Death and the Civil War explores an essential but largely overlooked aspect of the most pivotal event in American history: the transformation of the nation by the death of an estimated 750,000 men – nearly two and a half percent of the population – in four dark and searing years from 1861 to 1865. With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering and completely unprecedented casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before – on a scale and in a manner no one had ever imagined possible, and under circumstances for which the nation would prove completely unprepared. The impact would permanently alter the character of the republic, the culture of the government and the psyche of the American people – down to this day.

“Transpose the percentage of dead that mid-19th-century America faced into our own time – seven million dead, if we had the same percentage,” says author Drew Gilpin Faust, on whose groundbreaking book, This Republic of Suffering, the film is based. “What would we as a nation today be like if we faced the loss of seven million individuals?”

Death and the Civil War tracks the increasingly lethal arc of the war, from the bloodless opening in 1861, through the chaos of Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, and the unspeakable carnage of 1864 – down through the struggle, in the aftermath of the war, to cope with an American landscape littered with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many unburied, most unidentified. The work of contending with death on this scale would propel extraordinary changes in the inner and outer life of all Americans – posing challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began – challenges that called forth remarkable and eventually heroic efforts on the part of individuals, groups and the government – as Americans worked to improvise new solutions, new institutions, new ways of coping with death on an unimaginable scale.

Before the Civil War, there were no national cemeteries in America. No provisions for identifying the dead, or for notifying next of kin, or for providing aid to the suffering families of dead veterans. No federal relief organizations, no effective ambulance corps, no adequate federal hospitals, no federal provisions for burying the dead. No Arlington Cemetery. No Memorial Day. Death and the Civil War will premiere on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE on Tuesday, September 18, 2012 from 8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam – to this day, the single bloodiest day in American history.

RIC BURNS (Producer/Director)

Ric Burns is best known for his acclaimed series New York: A Documentary Film, a sweeping chronicle of the city’s history, which garnered several honors, including two Emmy Awards and an Alfred I. DuPont- Columbia Award. Burns’ career began with the celebrated series The Civil War, which he produced with his brother, Ken Burns, and co-wrote with Geoffrey C. Ward. In 1991, Ric founded Steeplechase Films and has since written and directed a number of award winning films for PBS, including Coney Island, The Donner Party, The Way West, Eugene O’Neill, and Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film. Most recently, for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, Burns wrote, produced, and co-directed Tecumseh’s Vision, part two of the groundbreaking five-part miniseries We Shall Remain, and a film about the history of the whaling industry,

Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World. A graduate of Columbia University and Cambridge University, Burns lives in New York City.

DREW GILPIN FAUST (Author, This Republic of Suffering) took office as Harvard University’s 28th president on July 1, 2007. A historian of the U.S. Civil War and the American South, Faust is also the Lincoln Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She previously served as founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2001-2007). Before coming to Radcliffe, Faust was the Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of six books, including This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (January, 2008), which was awarded the 2009 Bancroft Prize, the New-York Historical Society 2009 American History Book Prize, and recognized by The New York Times as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2008.” Faust’s honors include awards in 1982 and 1996 for distinguished teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994 and the American Philosophical Society in 2004. She received her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr in 1968, magna cum laude with honors in history, and master’s (1971) and doctoral (1975) degrees in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania.

About AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Television’s most-watched history series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE has been hailed as “peerless” (Wall Street Journal), “the most consistently enriching program on television” (Chicago Tribune), and “a beacon of intelligence and purpose” (Houston Chronicle). On air and online, the series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that have shaped America’s past and present. Acclaimed by viewers and critics alike, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE documentaries have been honored with every major broadcast award, including 14 George Foster Peabody Awards, four DuPont-Columbia Awards, and 30 Emmy Awards, including, most recently, Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking for Freedom Riders. Exclusive corporate funding for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance. Major funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Major funding for Death and the Civil War provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor. Additional Funding provided by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Dedicated To Strengthening America’s Future Through Education; the Nordblom Family Foundation and the Gretchen Stone Cook Charitable Foundation, members of the Documentary Investment Group; and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Television

Viewers. American Experience is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston.

Publicity Contacts:

CaraMar Publicity

Mary Lugo   770-623-8190  lugo@negia.net

Cara White  843-881-1480  cara.white@mac.com

Abbe Harris 908-233-7990  abbe@caramar.net

For further info and photos visit http://www.pbs.org/pressroom

Infographic on the battles of the Civil War

Civil War Trust put together an interesting and fairly well-done infographic that they are making available to post on websites. I thought I would share it here for your use.

Brought to you by The Civil War Trust

Lecture opportunity at Carlisle, PA

Ethan Rafuse, professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and blogger at Civil Warriors is delivering a lecture as part of the 44th Annual Lecture Series “Perspectives in Military History.” The lecture is entitled “We Always Understood Each Other So Well:  McClellan, Lee and the War in the East.” If you are in the area of Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania on July 18, I urge you to take in his lecture.

Material culture and Civil War soldiers

In light of Den Bolda’s great inaugural post on Union uniform coats, I thought I would share a paper I wrote for a class I took on material culture a couple years ago that dealt with Civil War soldiers. Being involved in reenacting since then, I have a greater appreciation for the objects and materials that constituted a soldier’s life and person during the war. On Friday, I head to Fort Sisseton for their history festival, so I will be absent from the blog for the weekend, but will post soon after I return on the fun of the weekend.

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