You may want to check out the following link to a category page that includes all of my posts related to the Civil War Memory class. It should answer all of your questions.

I am a big fan of the new Gettysburg Visitor Center, including the film. It is the closest we have to a national museum on the Civil War so it is appropriate for a film to address the causes of the war as well as its continuing legacy. I’ve written extensively about the VC so you might want to search through the archives for more. Thanks for taking the time to write.

1. How did your course work out? That is, did you feel it reached its goals, and did your students respond as you had hoped? Like the other poster on this thread, I would have loved to had had a course like this (even in college)!

2. Id be curious to know your reaction to the introductory film at the Gettysburg Visitor Center and Museum. I was just there, for the first time, and with my family, I watched A New Birth of Freedom, narrated by Morgan Freeman. I was surprised, frankly, with the content of the film: it dealt very little, if at all, with the Southern perspective on the elements that led to secession and the actual war. Instead, it seemed to me that the film was attempting to overturn generations of Lost Cause literature, historical narrative and popular culture by stating — and hammering away — the assertion that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, period, end of story.

Let me quickly state that I believe slavery was the root cause of the conflict, and it was the issue that divided the nation. Im just stating my surprise that a film being shown at an NPS facility, which seems to bend over backwards to be objective and neutral about Civil War history, would offer a film that is so assertive and such a controversial matter. My question is whether you know how the film came to be; were historians such as yourself consulted on the content or asked to review the film prior to its release?

(Incidentally, I asked our tour guide about the film. He said it was and is considered to be controversial, especially among Southern visitors — which I can understand. But I had the distinct impression he though the film was unbalanced).

Paul Bernish

Thinking back to my high school days, I would have jumped at the chance to take this course. By offering your students the opportunity to ask informed questions through study that is engaging rather than dull, you’re encouraging them to take that same approach to history for the rest of their lives. Sadly, the only high school history class I took that offered that same level of engagement was AP history. Fortunately, I’d been hooked on history since 6th grade when my social studies teacher took the same sort of approach, geared to our reading levels and abilities of course. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to more details and how your students respond.

John