Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Gettysburg's New Dawn, 1864, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

The first few days of January are usually crisp and cold in Gettysburg. Sometimes there is frost or snow, sometimes not. Sometimes there is a bitter wind, sometimes not. Sometimes there is sun bleeding across the horizon and splashing a cloudless sky, sometimes there is not. But the new year here, like everywhere else, stands as a symbol of promise and hope for the future. [excerpt]

Choice Poetry: Valiant Manhood's Flinch, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Throughout the war, the front page of Gettysburg's newspapers, regardless of your political stripe, had an evergreen column. Poetry graced the upper left corner each week. Sometimes raucous, often love-lorn, chiefly patriotic, the poems must have buoyed many a Pennsylvanian spirit as America floundered in the depth of Civil War.

Most of the poems were mainstream schmaltz, passed from paper to paper as each editor read a line or two he liked and thought his readers might appreciate. The poems spread like a particularly odd malignant cancer from organ to organ. [excerpt]