Angel of Marye’s Heights by Mort Kunstler Note: For additional commentary, check out Tim Abbott’s post on Kirkland at Walking the Berkshires.
Search: kirkland
The following guest post by Michael Schaffner examines the wartime evidence for the Kirkland story. It is a thoroughly researched essay and is well worth your time. I should point out that Mr. Schaffner did not set out to write a piece debunking this particular story. Like many of us he was curious about the [...]
Some of you are familiar with 10-year old Richard Warren’s earlier portrayal of Richard Kirkland that was filmed at Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg last year. He is slated to play a young Kirkland in the upcoming film that was mentioned in yesterday’s post. There are no surprises in young Richard’s narration; than again we shouldn’t [...]
I‘ve been thinking quite a bit about Sgt. Richard Kirkland lately. Last week Peter Carmichael referenced Kirkland in his speech marking the anniversary of the battle of Fredericksburg. Carmichael used the Kirkland story and his monument on the Fredericksburg battlefield to point out our tendency to glamorize the Civil War and ignore the more horrific [...]
Today I am giving the keynote address as part of a ceremony commemorating the 146th anniversary of the battle of Fredericksburg. Thanks to my friend and fellow historian John Hennessy for inviting me to take part on this important day. I can’t say this was the easiest presentation to write, but I am fairly comfortable [...]
I love those little bursts of creativity that I occasionally have in the classroom. With my commemoration talk scheduled for Sunday in Fredericksburg and my Civil War Memory classes focused on the analysis of soldier monuments, their inscriptions, as well as dedication talks, I decided to place them in the position of speaker and come [...]
It’s a strange feeling to have to write a commemoration talk when the very thing that deserves to be remembered and reinforced has almost entirely been forgotten. Even I failed to acknowledge that December 6 was the anniversary of the passage of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery forever. Few Americans would have conceived of [...]
A number of other bloggers have already announced the release of his new book, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (University of Kansas Press, 2008), but when we are talking about Earl Hess my rule is the more talk the better. Hess is quite simply one of my favorite historians. I [...]
