History Commons^™

Saving Grace On Feathered Wings: Homing Pigeons In The First World War, Brandon R. Katzung Hokanson

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Soldiers of the First World War came in all shapes and sizes. The humble homing pigeon is one of the more unique and critical examples of such. They served in the armed forces of both the Allies and the Central Powers. Used as a last-ditch form of communication, the homing pigeons were exceptional in the work of sending messages back and forth between the battle lines. Little has been written about their vital role and even less in the rigorous training the birds and their handlers both endured. Understanding their training is critical to understanding how the homing pigeons performed …

Through The Eyes Of Children: Social Oppression Under Nazi Rule From 1933 To 1938 Reflections Of Three Holocaust Survivors, Lauren Ashley Bradford

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

This paper discusses the experiences of three Berlin native child survivors of the Holocaust through analysis of their oral testimonies. Their unique voices help shed light on the various ways in which lives were forever changed for those who were legally identified as Jewish in Nazi Germany by way of social oppression. This paper highlights three key years that each survivor discussed at length in their testimonies: Hitler’s Chancellorship in 1933, the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, and Kristallnacht in 1938. Ultimately, this paper argues for the importance of these years and labels them as being a crucial part in the …

The Castle Of Intelligence: Camp Ritchie Maryland And The Military Intelligence Training Center During The Second World War., Kevin M. Aughinbaugh

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Abstract: During the Second World War, Camp Ritchie, Maryland played an important role in the training of intelligence soldiers. This camp was one of the many that taught men the various ways to gather intelligence on a battlefield. From aerial photography to prisoner interrogations, soldiers learned the skills required to gather information, make sense of it, and propose plans based on what they knew about enemy troop positions and movements. These skills would be put to the test once the men graduated their six months of intensive training, and were sent abroad to assist in the war effort. Despite Camp …

Between The World And Them, Jeffrey L. Lauck

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The first time I learned the story of the Bryan family and their Gettysburg farm was when I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me. For Coates, there was something poetic about the fact that the climax of the Civil War’s bloodiest and most well-known battle—a moment forever enshrined in Confederate memory thanks to the likes of William Faulknerand Ted Turner—occurred on land owned by a free black man and his family. Pickett’s Charge—the greatest symbol of Confederate martial honor in the Civil War canon—had been repulsed on property that represented so much of what its participants fought …

Reconstruction: A Concise History, Allen C. Guelzo

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Conflict shifted from the battlefield to the Capitol as Congress warred with President Andrew Johnson over just what to do with the South. Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction, which was sympathetic to the former Confederacy and allowed repressive measures such as the "black codes," would ultimately lead to his impeachment and the institution of Radical Reconstruction. While Reconstruction saw the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments, expanding the rights and …

Perspectives On Our Past: The Killed At Gettysburg Stories Of Franz Benda And Augustus Van Horne Ellis, Ryan Bilger

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Once again, I have spent the semester working on the Civil War Institute’s Killed at Gettysburg project. This project continues to be one with which I feel a strong connection, as I have always taken an interest in the stories of Gettysburg’s fallen. As such, I am glad to have had the opportunity to work on it again.

As before, I have focused on two soldiers in my research this spring, one an enlisted soldier in the ranks and one a regimental commander. The latter, Colonel Augustus van Horne Ellis of the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry, has a life-sized …

A Radical Idea: Charles Ellet’S Rams, Savannah Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The political cartoon above shows an engineer named Charles Ellet attempting to get a meeting with General George McClellan. Ellet contacted many government officials and important men to try to get his ideas recognized and implemented. Ellet was born in Pennsylvania in 1810 and was inspired to become an engineer when he watched the opening of the Erie Canal. At age 20, he went to Paris to learn his craft, attending lectures for civil engineers and examining bridges, railroads, and other structures. He returned to the United States afterwards and in 1835 went to work as an assistant engineer for …

Before The Post: The Women Journalists Of The Waterford News, Anika N. Jensen

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Long before Katharine Graham and Arianna Huffington established themselves in the traditionally male-dominated world of journalism, three women living through the uncertainty of the Civil War years broke into the field by controversial means: subversion. Lida Dutton (19), Lizzie Dutton (24), and Sarah Steer (26) were staunch Unionists of comfortable wealth living in Loudoun County, Virginia, a pocket of Unionist sentiment and abolitionist Quaker faith, in 1864 when they established the Waterford News, a pro-Union newspaper written, edited, and distributed in Confederate territory. The Waterford News provided an illustration of daily life in a southern town while simultaneously boosting morale …

James Bedell: The Inhumanity Of War, Jonathan Tracey

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

This semester, I am continuing to work on the Killed at Gettysburg digital history project. This time, I selected James T. Bedell, Private in Company F of the 7th Michigan Cavalry. I was introduced to his story while transcribing Henry Janes’ Case Book for Gettysburg National Military Park as a part of my work study program. Henry Janes was the doctor in charge of Camp Letterman, and after the war he compiled the bed cards of many soldiers treated at the hospital, creating his Case Book. Bedell’s record on a page entitled “Skull, Fractures of, with Injury of the Brain” …

From The Trenches: Cross-Campus Digital History Collaboration, Amy E. Lucadamo, Ian A. Isherwood, R.C. Miessler, Jenna Fleming, Meghan E. O'Donnell

All Musselman Library Staff Works

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs discussed the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences …

The Battle Fdr Lost:The Failed Nomination Of Boss Ed Flynn As Minister To Australia, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Shortly after Christmas in 1942, the U.S. minister to Australia, Nelson Trusler Johnson, decided the time was right for a break from his wartime duties. Johnson and his wife, Jane, agreed that a seaside vacation with their young children was in order. The Johnson family duly motored to Narooma, about 150 miles southeast of Canberra, for what they expected to be a three-week holiday during the peak of the Australian summer. They chose the spot for its beauty—and because the children would be able to swim without worrying about sharks.The Johnsons’ holiday was cut short on January 8, when wire …

God And Mr. Lincoln, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

On the day in April 1837 that Abraham Lincoln rode into Springfield, Illinois, to set himself up professionally as a lawyer, the American republic was awash in religion. Lincoln, however, was neither swimming nor even bobbing in its current. “This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all, at least it is so to me,” the uprooted state legislator and commercially bankrupt Lincoln wrote to Mary Owens on May 7th. “I am quite as lonesome here as [I] ever was anywhere in my life,” and in particular, “I’ve never been to church yet, nor probably shall …

A Whole Lot Of Blame To Go Around: The Confederate Collapse At Five Forks, Peter S. Carmichael

History Faculty Publications

While Confederate major general George E. Pickett was finishing his plate of fried fish at a shad bake, Union major general Philip H. Sheridan was devouring Pickett's command at Five Forks. The sounds of the Federal assault were supposedly silenced by abnormal atmospheric conditions called an acoustic shadow. Pickett and his luncheon companions -- Maj. Gen. Thomas Rosser and Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee -- heard nothing over the sounds of conviviality, but the sudden appearance of the courier alerted the dining party to an alarming reality. This solider claimed that he was nearly shot out of his saddle by Federal …

Managing Ethnic Conflict In Darfur: An Analysis Of Third-Party Interventions, Marley R. Dizney Swanson

Student Publications

Persistent ethnic conflict in Darfur has been met by third-party interventions with varying degrees of success. This paper seeks to isolate different methods of intervention in order to understand what types are effective in reducing the number of people affected by violence caused by ethnic conflict. Each intervention is separated into three categories based on their nature: humanitarian, militaristic, and diplomatic. These actions are then juxtaposed with data from medical journals that describe the effects of violence, including death by violence, death by disease, and child mortality rates. The success of an intervention is measured by its ability to reduce …

Gender Quotas And Women’S Political Participation In Slovenia And Croatia: When Similar Historical Developments And Homogeneity Of Design Yield Different Outcomes, Colin J. J. Yandam

Student Publications

This paper aims at summarizing the knowledge surrounding gender quotas – which are a quick gate-way to women’s political participation – and at assessing the efficacy of their different means of implementation. Through the cross-national study of Slovenia and Croatia (two countries similar on almost every political, social, and historical development except for women’s political representation) and in tandem with an extensive review of previous works in the literature, this paper sheds some light on the techniques the civil society and feminist/women’s movements could use to maximize their political impact and overall gender-quota effectiveness. Indeed, this paper finds that by …

The Virginia Monument’S Meaning In Memory, Jonathan Tracey

Student Publications

In the early 1900s, many people began to advocate for Confederate monuments on the battlefield at Gettysburg. However, different motivations were present. Many Northerners saw Confederate monuments as a way to further unity, while Southerners instead used the monuments to preserve a separate identity. The Virginia Memorial is a clear case of this.

Jack Peirs, Third Ypres, And Control, Jonathan Tracey

Student Publications

During the First World War, British officers, primarily upper class, struggled to adapt to trauma within the boundaries of social expectations. Viewing the combat experience and letters of Jack Peirs during the battle of Passchendaele offers insight into how officers experienced the war, explained it to their families, and coped with trauma.

Besatzungskinder: Die Schweigenden Geister Des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Besatzungskinder: The Silenced Ghosts Of The Second World War), Aimee C. Bosman

Student Publications

Diese Forschungsarbeit konzentriert sich auf die Erfahrung von Besatzungskindern in Deutschland nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Sie diskutiert die Exposition oder mangelnde Sichtbarkeit von Besatzungskindern in der Gesellschaft und wie sie kulturell dargestellt wurden. Diese These stellt die Frage, wie Besatzungskinder in der Gesellschaft gesehen wurden, und ob die Gesellschaft ihnen half, eine deutsche Identität zu entwickeln.

Understanding Violence Against Foreigners In Cape Town: Conceptions Of Autochthony And Xenophobia In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Mary L. Casey

Student Publications

Examining the correlation between the history of colonialism and structures of Apartheid in South Africa and the current xenophobic violence experienced by Black African immigrants settling in Cape Town. This thesis explores theories of autochthony and belonging in the context of Cape Town, Black South African relationships and ownership of land, access to resources and opportunities for employment, and the continued disenfranchisement of Black South Africans in the wake of Apartheid. These components of the issue of xenophobia in Cape Town are factored into an analysis of how and why violence persists against immigrants in the city.

Competing Memory Camp Colt’S Place In Gettysburg History, Anika N. Jensen

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

I recently came face-to-face with the issue of relevance in my research on Camp Colt for a public history class, and in studying the tankers’ noble intentions—preserving democracy, stemming German militarization, progressing American innovation—on an equally noble battlefield, I came to an troubling impasse: should America’s first tank school, which operated on the same ground where men fell in droves during Pickett’s Charge roughly fifty years prior, be recognized to the same degree as the Battle of Gettysburg? Is there a way to justify discussing Eisenhower’s command over the fledgling tank corps, which never saw combat, in the same light …

Raising Questions: Gettysburg Rising’S Confederate Flag Forum, Olivia Ortman

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

On March 3, Gettysburg Rising–a group that encourages civic engagement by sharing information–hosted a forum on the Confederate flag. It drew a modest, yet eager crowd. The goal of the event was to create an opportunity for people to come together and share their thoughts and feelings about the flag. After Professor David Hadley delivered a brief history of the flag, the attendees took the mic. [excerpt]

Inspirations Of War: Innovations In Prosthetics After The Civil War, Savannah A. Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In early 1861, a Confederate soldier named James Edward Hanger waited on the ground to die. Minutes before, his left leg had been shot off above the knee while he was sitting with his comrades in the loft of a barn in Philipi, Virginia. As soon as the cannonball burst through the barn, the rest of the men fled, leaving Hanger behind. He was found by enemy troops and brought to a doctor, who amputated his leg. Hanger became the first person to have a limb amputated during the Civil War. When one thinks of Civil War injuries, amputations often …

Lee And His Lieutenants: An Interview With Keith Bohannon, Ashley Whitehead Luskey

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Over the course of this year, we’ll be interviewing some of the speakers from the upcoming 2018 CWI conference about their talks. Today we are speaking with Dr. Keith Bohannon, Professor of History at the University of West Georgia, where he teaches courses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Old South, and Georgia history. He is the co-editor, with Randall Allen, of Campaigning with Old Stonewall in Virginia: The Letters of Ujanirtus Allen, Company F, 21^st Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry (LSU Press, 1998), and is the author of numerous essays, book reviews, and scholarly journal articles. Prior to …

Separate But Equal? Gettysburg’S Lincoln Cemetery, Savannah A. Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The most well-known cemetery in Gettysburg is, of course, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Another cemetery in Gettysburg that receives less attention is the Lincoln Cemetery, currently located on Lincoln Lane. This small cemetery is home to around thirty Civil War veterans. Why were these men not buried in the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, a cemetery created for all veterans of the Civil War? The answer: they were African-American. While they were allowed to fight for their freedom, even in death, these men were still not equal to the white soldiers they fought beside. [excerpt]

Special Collections And Student Curators: Public History Through Primary Sources, Carolyn Sautter

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Musselman Library's Special Collections and College Archives at Gettysburg College has worked with over 70 student curators on art gallery exhibitions and public history exhibits. These curatorial experiences provide hands-on interactions with artifacts and artworks and high-impact collaborations among students, interns, archivists, librarians, historians, digital projects specialists, gallery directors, conservators, and preparators. The final result is often breathtaking and always informative. This presentation discusses practical recommendations and workflows for well timed, well researched, and effectively installed student curated exhibits.

Reviving The Past: The Battle Flag In The Confederate Memorial Period, Olivia Ortman

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In the years immediately following the Civil War, the Confederate battle flag mostly disappeared from public view. In their diaries, Southerners wrote about hiding flags and other Confederate symbols for fear of Union retaliation. In most cases, Southerners intuitively understood that these symbols were now taboo, but occasionally, they stated that Union troops explicitly forbade displays of the battle flag. Some Southerners did still flaunt the flag as a means of defiance against Union troops, as mentioned in my last post, but most people quietly tucked it away. A mere five years after the war ended, though, the flag …

The Long Legacy Of White Citizen Police: A Recap Of The 12th Annual Gondwe Lecture, Jeffrey L. Lauck

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Last week, the Gettysburg College Africana Studies and Economics Departments sponsored the 12th annual Derrick K. Gondwe Memorial Lectureon Social and Economic Justice. This year’s lecture featured Dr. Edward E. Baptist, a Durham, North Carolina native currently teaching in the History Department at Cornell University. His lecture, “White Predators: Hunting African Americans For Profit, From the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act to Lee’s 1863 Invasion of Pennsylvania,” painted the picture of a centuries-long instinct among white Americans to police black Americans. [excerpt]

Under The Enemy Flag: Prisoner Of War Experiences: An Interview With Angela Zombek And Michael Gray, Ashley Whitehead Luskey

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Over the course of this year, we’ll be interviewing some of the speakers from the upcoming 2018 CWI conference about their talks. Today we are speaking with Angie Zombek, Assistant Professor of History at St. Petersburg College. Dr. Zombek is the author of numerous articles and essays, including “Paternalism and Imprisonment at Castle Thunder: Reinforcing Gender Norms in the Confederate Capital,” which appeared in the scholarly journal, Civil War History in September of 2017; “Citizenship – Compulsory or Convenient: Federal Officials, Confederate Prisoners, and the Oath of Allegiance,” in Paul J. Quigley’s edited volume, The American Civil War and the …

“The Vegetables Really Get More Tender Care”: An Introduction To Death And Dying In The Civil War, Zachary A. Wesley

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The Victorian world was one of ceremony and order, even in death. Deathways–the practices of a society regarding death and dying–in 19thcentury America focused on elaborate rituals that earned the country the grisly distinction of possessing a “culture of death.” The American Civil War presented a four-year window in which many of these traditions were radically challenged in both the North and the South, as loved ones died anonymous deaths far from the embrace of kin. Nevertheless, the warring populations attempted to maintain important traditions even as the horrors of war surrounded them, thus allowing the deathways of the antebellum …

Spreading The Flames: The United States, Cuba, And The Fear Of Africanization, Savannah A. Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In the years leading up to the Civil War, the fight over slavery played out in many different arenas, notably in Kansas and Nebraska. While Bleeding Kansas was arguably the most well-known and violent clash over slavery before the Civil War, there were others as well. One flash point over the question of slavery resulted from political unrest in Cuba. In the 1850s, Spain owned Cuba, an economically prosperous island with an economy based on African slave labor. However, Spain was under pressure from Great Britain to end slavery in Cuba, and because Spain was in enormous debt and was …