Social History Commons^™

“Consternation Was Depicted On All Their Countenances”: Gettysburg’S African American Community And Confederate Invasion, Brian D. Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

On June 15, 1863, Albert Jenkins’s Confederate cavalry brigade became the first of Lee’s men to enter the North when it crossed the Potomac River and headed for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Lee had issued strict orders forbidding his men to damage or confiscate private property unless it was a requisition made for necessary supplies, and overseen by authorized Confederate staff. Jenkins’s men half-heartedly obeyed, and scoured the area for anything valuable, including African Americans, fugitive or legally free, who might be sold into slavery. One horrified Chambersburg resident watched local blacks attempt to hide in cornfields only to have troopers chase …

Dallas, William Robert, Sr., 1910-1997 (Mss 472), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 472. Correspondence, almost exclusively between William Robert Dallas, Sr., and his girlfriend, fiancé, and later wife Virginia “Ginny” Eileen Lindsay. Dallas was in the Army Air Corps and stationed in Louisville, Kentucky, while Ginny was living in her hometown of Ventnor, New Jersey, right outside Atlantic City. The letters are courtship related and are filled with plans for their wedding on 15 September 1945.

Topmiller Family Papers (Sc 2778), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2778. Letters and papers of various members of the Topmiller family of Kentucky, Tennessee and New Mexico. Includes letters of Benjamin E. Topmiller to his wife Jessie; letters of condolence to Jessie on her husband’s death; postcards from a World War I serviceman to a young lady in Owensboro, Kentucky; and letters to Victor Topmiller regarding his service to the Davet Home and School for Spastic Paralysis in Owensboro.

The Storm Breaks: Gettysburg’S African-American Community During The Battle, Brian D. Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

By late June 1863, though rebel troops had already occupied Gettysburg briefly, the threat to the borough grew still more ominous. Rebel troops had cut the town’s railroad lifeline to the north by destroying a bridge across Rock Creek, and convinced the local telegraph operator to flee with his equipment. The new isolation from news accentuated scattered reports of large forces, rebel and federal, approaching the borough from all directions. When federal cavalry arrived on June 30 to take up defensive positions west of town, Gettysburg residents sensed a looming battle. [excerpt]

Calm Before The Storm: Gettysburg’S African-American Community Before The Battle, Brian D. Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

African-Americans have always been a part of Gettysburg’s community fabric. Slaves belonging to Samuel Gettys, the area’s first settler, arrived as early as 1762 to build one of the first local taverns. Samuel’s son James, who founded Gettysburg in 1786, also owned slaves, including Sydney O’Brien. After her owner’s death, O’Brien obtained her freedom, and in purchasing a small lot along South Washington Street helped establish the borough’s African-American neighborhood. The free black community continued to grow over the first decades of the nineteenth century as Pennsylvania’s policy of gradual emancipation effectively ended slavery in the state by the 1840s. …

Her Bright Blazon Forever Unstained, John M. Rudy

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

Just a few lyrics today, nothing more, nothing less. Lyrics of joy. Lyrics of home. Lyrics of who we are as a nation. Might we never forget who we are again. [excerpt]

Shaw's Backside: The Other Side Of An Icon, John M. Rudy

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

This week I find myself in Boston, one of the couple of American cities which call themselves the cradle of liberty. But I'm not drawn like a moth to the Revolution. It's just not my bean.

Instead, I find myself in the awkward position of standing at a visitor desk and asking a park ranger what will interest a Civil War geek in a Revolutionary-bent city. That dog don't hunt so well. [excerpt]

Child's Play: War, Toys And Avoiding The Trivial, John M. Rudy

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

This past weekend, I let my two hobbies combine. I spend a good chunk of my spare time doing incessant, weird and wild historical research. If you've read along on the blog for any appreciable time, you know the odd corners I've turned finding peculiar and striking stories both here in Gettysburg and beyond.

But I have another hobby.

I am an Adult Fan of LEGO. [excerpt]

Coombs Family Collection (Mss 349), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 349. Correspondence, photographs, business records and miscellaneous papers of the Coombs, Robertson and related families of Warren and Simpson counties in Kentucky and of Alabama, Texas and Tennessee. Includes correspondence, personal papers and research of Elizabeth Robertson Coombs, librarian at the Kentucky Library, Western Kentucky University. Several documents from this collection have been scanned are available for viewing by clicking on the "Additional Files" below.

Finding The Good: An Emotional Anniversary, John M. Rudy

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

I am an exacting judge of interpretive product. I realize this. My boss and I have had a few discussions about how both of our standards, sometimes, might be just a bit too high.

I still am not convinced that pure and utter excellence is not too much to ask for on every interpretive program. All too often, though, I don't find it.

When I do see amazing moments, it thrills me. I get outrageously excited. Through my entire experience as a visitor at the sesquicentennial celebration at Gettysburg, two programs stand out as verging on that sort of gleaming …

Stewart W. Woods: A Peculiar Casualty At Fort Wagner?, John M. Rudy

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

Captured in the darkness of July 18th on a sandy beach in South Carolina was a native of Adams County. Stewart W. Woods, born in Heidlersburg around 1836, found himself in the hands of the rebels, among a handful of his compatriots in the 54th Massachusetts. The fighting of Woods' war was over and his fate was unclear. Stewart was a free man, born under the folds of the same American flag under which he now fought. At some point, he had drifted over the mountain range and called Carlisle home when the war erupted in 1861. [excerpt]

A New Theory For Battle Landscapes - Toward An Interpretive Future, John M. Rudy

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

There's a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding has been long and deep. It goes something like this:

Your crusade to destroy the current practice of military history on battlefields is a form of fundamentalism just like the supposed fundamentalism of military history you aim to change. [excerpt]

July 3, 2013 Reflection: A Chance Encounter, Ian A. Isherwood

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In a July 4 letter to his father-in-law, General Alexander Hays expressed reserve. “Yesterday was a warm one for us,” he wrote. “The fight of my division was a perfect success […] We are all sanguine of ridding our soil of the invaders.”

The “perfect success” for Hays was his command’s role in the repulse of Pettigrew’s division in what has become known as Pickett’s Charge. It was an unquestionable victory for his division and the Army of the Potomac. Yet Alex Hays’s matter-of-fact letter was not buoyant with the egoism so easily ascribed to generals after their victories. Hays …

“A Great Weight At My Heart:” A Personal Reaction To Pickett’S Charge, Rebekah N. Oakes

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

“When our great victory was just over the exultation of victory was so great that one didn’t think of our fearful losses, but now I can’t help feeling a great weight at my heart. Poor Henry Ropes was one of the dearest friends I ever had or expect to have. He was one of the purest-minded, noblest, most generous men I ever knew. His loss is terrible. His men actually wept when they showed me his body, even under the tremendous cannonade, a time when most soldiers see their comrades dying around them with indifference.”

When twenty-one year old Henry …

To My Great Great Grand Uncle - On The Occasion Of The 150th Anniversary Of Your Death, John M. Rudy

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

Dear William Henry,

I'm writing this standing near the spot where you died, exactly 150 years ago nearly to the second. I'm typing on a tiny screen, a technological marvel that lets me share the stories of men like you with the world instantly.

They've put up a monument to you and the 17 other men who died along with you along the banks of Plum Run creek. We call this place "The Valley of Death" now. I think you among all people who have walked this green earth would understand why.... [excerpt]

A New Birth Of Freedom, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The president of the United States had been more than usually agitated ever since the news of a major collision of the Union and Confederate armies around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, first flew along the telegraph wires to the War Department on July 1, 1863. For days, he was clouded with “sadness and despondency” until the message arrived, announcing a great victory for the Union. That was followed almost at once by news from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles: another dispatch had come in, “communicating the fall of Vicksburg [Mississippi] on the fourth of July.” At once, Abraham Lincoln’s mood changed, …