I am pleased to announce that Myra Chandler Sampson will be speaking on Wednesday evening at 6:30pm at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Austin, Texas. Her topic, as you can see in the museum’s advertisement, is Silas Chandler. If I am not mistaken, this will be her first public presentation. I [...]
Teaching
This morning I signed on to give a presentation at the Civil War Trust’s National Teacher Institute, which will take place in Charleston, South Carolina between July 12-15. This is my third year working with Nicole Osier and Garry Adelman and I couldn’t be more excited. If you are a k-12 history teacher, who has [...]
Today I had the pleasure of skyping with a Civil War class at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee. Chris Lese and his class have made good use of my blog over the past few weeks so I offered to spend some time with his students to field questions. In addition to utilizing the blog [...]
“[T]he enemy of Civil War history is everything people think they know about the conflict.” — Ed Ayers. Thanks to everyone for the emails and comments about my most recent op-ed in the New York Times Disunion column. Yesterday I took some time to catch up on some old posts. What I value most about [...]
In December 2008 I was honored to deliver the keynote address for the National Park Service’s annual commemoration of the battle of Fredericksburg. I used the opportunity to reflect on how I utilize battlefields to connect my students to American history. Last year I decided to revise it to reflect the various places that I [...]
A year ago this month I learned that my wife and I would be moving to Boston at the end of the school year. Rather than scramble to secure a teaching position I decided to take the year off and think carefully about my next move. That decision has helped to clarify a number of [...]
Yesterday I spent the day in Virginia Beach working with a group of 4th and 5th grade teachers on how to teach the Civil War. I was joined by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, who lectured during the morning session on the war through emancipation and I followed up with an overview of how to use Civil War [...]
On Tuesday I will be working with a group of k-12 history teachers in Virginia on how they can introduce the subject of historical memory in their classrooms. The news that Virginia may set aside a day to honor Abraham Lincoln could not have come at a better time and I plan on offering some [...]