Today is the anniversary of one of the bloodiest days of fighting of the entire Civil War. Those of you who visit Chancellorsville today will enjoy an insightful tour and interpretation of the final day’s fighting at Chancellorsville that took place in the area around the clearing between Hazel Grove, Fairview, and the Chancellor House. [...]
Battlefield Interpretation
Frederick Chapman’s (1818-1891) painting, “The Battle of Chancellorsville” (1865) is not an easy image to come by on the Internet. Information about the artist is just as difficult to nail down. Chapman is a relatively obscure artist. He served as the first president of the Brooklyn Art Association and was best known for his work [...]
It’s one of those days where I can’t help but miss central Virginia and the opportunity to bring my students to Chancellorsville for the 150th anniversary. Chancellorsville was the first Civil War battle that I attempted to interpret for those students who took my Civil War class. Interpreting a battlefield rarely involved the close analysis [...]
Earlier today I finished reading Michael J. Bennett’s essay “The Black Flag and Confederate Soldiers: Total War from the Bottom Up” which is also published in Andy Slap and Michael Smith eds., This Distracted and Anarchical People: New Answers for Old Questions about the Civil War-Era North. In his essay, Bennett explores accounts of massacres [...]
Here are three photographs of the Crater from the Petersburg Museum that did not make it into my book. The first was taken inside the mineshaft itself and is dated 1926, though it is difficult to estimate exactly where. Notice the sunlight that is coming in from above. I assume the photograph was taken close [...]
This will probably be the last post I write before I put together my final thoughts as an introduction to the panel on interpreting USCTs at Civil War sites that I will be moderating on Saturday at Gettysburg College. I am still thinking about Carole Emberton’s essay, which I briefly touched on a few days [...]
What follows are a few thoughts in response to the position papers of my fellow panelists, who will join me next week at Gettysburg College to talk about how we interpret the USCT experience on our Civil War battlefields. It’s a bit rough, but it should give you an idea of some of the things [...]
Last night the Civil War Institute posted a video of National Park Service historian David Larsen discussing issues related to interpretation at historic sites. Larsen worked as a training manager for interpretation at Mather Training Center. Unfortunately, he recently passed away. I am embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of him before last [...]
