Military History Commons^™

Payne, Selden H., 1841-1926 (Sc 2890), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan of typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2890. Letter of Selden H. Payne, 18 January 1863, written from Camp Nelson, Kentucky to his sister Mary Hills in Eagleville, Ohio. He describes the troops, Confederate prisoners and wounded of the camp and recounts his travels, including nights spent at the Louisville depot, a “Negro prison” in Lexington, and the court house in Nicholasville, Kentucky. He also describes the injury and death of a comrade at the Louisville depot after he fell under the troop rail car, originally used to transport hogs.

“Children Of The Damned”: An Indie Band Remembers Andersonville, Heather L. Clancy

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

When alternative band Quiet Hounds released Megaphona in 2012, they presented an album peppered with an impressive range of styles, from folksy ballads to pseudo-manic hipster club tunes. The album’s most unexpected choice, though, came in the form of its closing song, “Beacon Sun.” In it, the band’s lead singer carries a mournful melody. A hypnotizing rhythm runs through the track, underscored by the tattoo of a lethargic tambourine. Indeed, the track is more akin to a jazzed-up hymn than anything else, an impression that is not surprising to listeners once they heave themselves out of the indie haze long …

“I Am Always Thinking First Of You:” The Chamberlains In Love And War, Bryan G. Caswell

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Soldier. Professor. Hero. Braggart. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain has been called many things by many people. Regardless of whether one loves or despises him, Chamberlain and his role in the American Civil War never fail to evoke intense emotion. While books, movies, and the occasional painting have all immortalized Chamberlain the soldier, rare is the occasion to observe Chamberlain the husband. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I bring you the story of the Chamberlains; a story of romance and rebuttal, of peace and conflict, of injury both physical and emotional and, in the end, a deep, abiding love. [excerpt]

Fort Williams - Glasgow, Kentucky (Mss 531), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 531. Correspondence, research, historical and archaeological reports, contracts, budgets and other documents relating to the 1970s excavation and restoration of Fort Williams, a Civil War fortification at Glasgow, Kentucky.

Kirby, Carlisle Wilkins, 1890-1968 (Mss 530), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 530. Note cards, memoranda, and grave registration forms compiled by Carlisle W. Kirby and others for the Veterans’ Graves Registration Project in Warren County, Kentucky, a project created by the Works Progress Administration to identify the graves of war veterans from the American Revolution through World War I. Included are names, service data, and the name of the cemetery, where known. Also includes clippings from the (Bowling Green, Kentucky) Park City Daily News about local soldiers serving in the Korean War.

Their Chance For Redemption?: The Dauphin County Regiment At Second Fredericksburg, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

After a less than respectable showing on the slopes of Marye’s Heights in December 1862, the 127th Pennsylvania Regiment found itself in desperate need of an opportunity to redeem itself on the field of battle. Could a mulligan assault on the same ridge be the key to restoring their honor? Assigned to Hall’s Brigade in Gibbon’s Division for the duration of the Chancellorsville Campaign, they now had a chance to find out. [excerpt]

Democracy And Nobility, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Americans love revolutions. Our national identity began with a revolution, and a revolutionary war that lasted for eight years; and we cheer on other people’s revolutions, as though we find satisfaction in multiplying our own. “I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. “No country should be long without one.” An excited James Garfield, in his maiden speech in the House of Representatives in 1864, asked whether his colleagues “forget that the Union had its origin in revolution.” Ralph Waldo …

Bowling Green Civil War Round Table Newsletter (Jan. 2015), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Bowling Green Civil War Round Table Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Bowling Green Civil War Round Table Newsletter (Feb. 2015), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Bowling Green Civil War Round Table Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Broken Promises: Rape, Race, And The Union Army, Kellie J. Hedgers

All Master's Theses

Through the use of Union courts-martial records, this paper will examine the ways in which black women who had been assaulted by white men were denied justice in military courts. Although the Union Army was often perceived of as an army representing freedom and higher moral purpose, the court martial records reveal a darker side. They reveal that sometimes black women found no safety behind Union lines; rather, they found themselves victims of sexual violence by white men and had little recourse to justice. Although outwardly the Union Army was devoted to abolishing slavery, the inner workings of its courts …

Constructing The World's Largest Prison: Understanding Identity By Examining Labor, Hubert J. Gibson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

A Civil War prison camp operated by the Confederacy known as Camp Lawton was once considered the largest prison in the world. This label was attributed to the fact that Lawton’s stockade enclosed 42 acres. The historical record does not have a clear picture of who built it. Newspaper interviews claim the construction was carried out by 500 impressed slave laborers and 300 Union POWs, but these lack the credibility of official orders. Unfortunately, many Confederate documents were lost when Sherman’s army came through Millen, GA. This study archaeologically examines construction techniques utilized for building stockades in an effort …

Heavy Metal Gettysburg And The Allure Of Emotive History, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In July 1863

A Nation Torn In Tragedy

A Trick Of Fate, Two Great Armies Merge

Gods Of War At Gettysburg

Devastation Lies Ahead

50,000 Bodies Litter The Land

Hell Rages Three Full Days

The Reaper Sows, There’s The Devil To Pay.

Thus begins the first song in Iced Earth’s three-part ballad inspired by the Battle of Gettysburg. [excerpt]

“So Here’S To The Stars And Stripes, Me Boys, And To Ireland’S Lovely Shore”, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The Dropkick Murphys is a popular American Celtic Punk band known for their combinations of punk rock and bagpipes. Their songs are filled with Irish pride and often have something to do with hard partying and whiskey. However, in their 1999 album The Gang’s All Here, the Murphys took on the topic of Irish soldiers in the American Civil War. The song “The Fighting 69th” was first sung by the Irish band The Wolfe Tones on their 1993 album Across the Broad Atlantic. The album features several songs dedicated to Irish immigrants to America and holds a certain fascination for …

A “Friendship . . . Born Amidst The Thunders Of Gettysburg”: The Barlow- Gordon Incident, Brianna E. Kirk

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

July 1, 1863. It is the first day of what will come to be known as the Battle of Gettysburg. Union forces, upon firing the first shot in the early morning hours of that Wednesday, were pushed back from their position near Herr’s Ridge and McPherson’s woods towards Cemetery Hill. Following orders given by Schurz, twenty-nine year old Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow moved his division to the right of Schimmelfennig’s division and placed them on top of an elevated piece of land known as Blocher’s Knoll. The Eleventh Corps had yet to begin their retreat through Gettysburg, but they …

Tolle Collection (Mss 524), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 524. Correspondence and papers of the Tolle family of Barren County, Kentucky. Includes data on the Tolle, Snoddy and Bransford families, William Daniel Tolle’s history of Barren County, and materials relating to his work as a veteran’s pension claims agent.

Jarvis, George Perry, 1842-1920 (Sc 2874), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2874. Letter, 18 February 1862, of George P. Jarvis to L.R. Jarvis and friends in Athens County, Ohio, written while he was serving with the 3rd Ohio Infantry. He describes in detail the advance of his and other regiments on Bowling Green, Kentucky, their engagements with Confederate forces, and the destruction wrought by the Confederates during their retreat. Writing from one of the “principal houses” in town, Jarvis praises the taking of Bowling Green, calling it “one of the strongholds of this state” and the “Gibraltar …

Point/Counterpoint: Anchoring Historical Memory, Bryan G. Caswell, Heather L. Clancy '15

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 saw citizens and students of Gettysburg crowd into the Majestic Theater for the fifty-third annual Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture. The audience listened attentively as Dr. Nina Silber, a renowned historian of the American Civil War, explored the nuanced application of the memory of Abraham Lincoln during the 1930s and ‘40s, especially as associated with the figure of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. [excerpt]

Remembrance Day…But Remembering What?, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In conversation with other CWI Fellows last week, we began discussing the strangeness of the annual Remembrance Day Parade. Originally conceived as a way to recreate the procession to the cemetery in 1863 to hear the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery, it seems to have morphed into something different all together. If we are honoring a recommitment to the preservation of Union, why do Confederate reenactors march in the parade? If we are simply celebrating the soldiers of both sides of the Civil War, why does the parade end at the site of the address …

Hidden In Plain Sight: The Coster Avenue Mural, Brianna E. Kirk

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The Gettysburg Battlefield has over one thousand monuments dedicated to a host of brave men who fought and gave their lives during the three day engagement in July of 1863. Littered alongside well-traveled roads and points of attraction on the battlefield, most do not go unnoticed. There are a few, however, that do. One of them commemorates Captain Heckman’s Battery K of the 1st Ohio Light Artillery, an oft-passed but unnoticed monument on Gettysburg College’s campus and the focus of one of my previous blog posts . Another cluster of monuments in the vicinity of the Gettysburg College campus and …

Gettysburg: A Town Built On Tourism, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In my most recent blog posts, I’ve adopted a rather unforgiving stance on the rampant consumerism that pervades the town of Gettysburg. Essentially, I have argued that the borough’s tacky gift shops sell odious little trinkets to gullible tourists and profiteer from the public’s morbid obsession with war and death. But while I firmly believe that this zealous consumerism is a persistent threat to healthy historical engagement, there is another side to the issue that demands to be recognized: Gettysburg kitsch is part of what has made Gettysburg into a town brimming with opportunities to broaden the public’s historical consciousness. …

Lost: Sesquicentennial Sanity. If Found, Please Contact Borough Of Gettysburg., Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

If you were in Gettysburg during the summer of 2013, you surely encountered the ubiquitous 150th Gettysburg logo branded on everything from promotional materials to souvenirs. The latter – tacky at best and irreverent at worst – filled the town to the point of excess, making some of us wonder how many people completely missed the point of the sesquicentennial. Anniversaries exert a powerful force on the American historical psyche, but it is dubious whether Gettysburg’s celebration exerted an appropriate one. The sesquicentennial was a wonderful opportunity to refocus on the events of July 1863, but sadly many businesses in …

Gettysburg’S Faustian Bargain, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

A question to the reader: have you ever visited Gettysburg? Presumably most of the Gettysburg Compiler’s audience will answer in the affirmative. A follow-up question: have you ever purchased a souvenir from one of the town’s abundant gift shops? Perhaps it was a kepi or a cork gun for your child? Or maybe a bottle of “Rebel Red” wine? Or some tacky trinket or faux antique?

Let’s face it: we live in a consumer society in which there is nothing too sacred to profit from. And, sadly, the Battle of Gettysburg is no exception. [excerpt]

Valor Finally Honored, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

It has taken one hundred and fifty-one years, but finally, 1st Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing is getting his due - which in this case is the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In a ceremony today at the White House, President Obama will award the Medal of Honor posthumously to Cushing "for conspicuous gallantry... while serving as commanding officer of Battery A, 4th United States Artillery, Artillery Brigade, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac during combat operations in the vicinity of Cemetery Ridge, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 3, 1863." [excerpt]

Gettysburg Valor Honored At Last, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

There is no expiration date on valor. This is the lesson on display today at the White House, as President Obama awards the Medal of Honor to a soldier who died 151 years ago at the climax of the Battle of Gettysburg. Alonzo Cushing was a lowly lieutenant, two years out of West Point at that battle. But he commanded the last two cannon that faced Pickett's Charge, and what he did with them has kept memory alive. [excerpt]

Daniels, Herbert, 1836-1899 (Mss 500), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 500. Letters of Herbert Daniels, serving with the 7th Rhode Island Infantry, to Salina A. (Brewster) Waterson in Worcester, Massachusetts. He reports on camp life in Kentucky, Maryland and Washington, D.C., gossips about other soldiers, and makes candid references to his sexual relationship with Salina.

Bowling Green Civil War Round Table Newsletter (Nov. 2014), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Bowling Green Civil War Round Table Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Henry Wirz And The Tragedy Of Andersonville: A Question Of Responsibility, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

Henry Wirz was the most controversial Swiss American. Born in Zurich, Wirz migrated to the United States and joined the Confederacy at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was assigned to oversee the military prison at Andersonville, Georgia, which had a very high death rate. Following the war, Wirz was arrested and tried for war crimes. The trial was a travesty of justice. Many of his supposed crimes were milder punishments than the Union inflicted on its own soldiers. The court allowed hearsay evidence, Wirz was no allowed to call key witnesses for his defense, and many leaders of …

Seduced By The “Dark Turn”, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Last year, I attended a Civil War Conference that highlighted what has become known as the “Dark Turn of the Civil War.” Basically, the turn is a shift in focus from the shiny-bugles-and-gleaming-bayonets interpretation of the Civil War to revealing the ugly underside of the Civil War, emphasizing themes of death, destruction, and loss. At the time, I remember thinking, this is a good thing, Civil War history does tend to be overly romanticized as the glorious American tragedy. One panel that bothered me, however, featured a discussion on “Dark Tourism.” I had never heard of Dark Tourism, and I …

The Specter Of Gettysburg, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The story I am about to tell is entirely true. Several weeks ago, as I departed Musselman Library after a long night of intensive research, a sudden presence roused me from my intellectual exhaustion. I was chilled to the bone as they appeared before me: shadowy figures silhouetted against the dimly lit façade of our beloved administration building. Now, I had, of course, heard of the campus’ hauntings. Tales of the ghostly field hospital in Penn Hall’s basement, the spectral sentry watching from its cupola, and the Blue Boy of Stevens Hall are well known stories throughout our campus community …

Battlefield Correspondence: Sarah Johnson At The Virginia Monument, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In our first Battlefield Correspondence video of the semester, Sarah Johnson ’15 reports on the unusual circumstances surrounding the dedication of the Virginia Monument in 1917. [excerpt]