Over the years, we have built up an array of special online resources designed to assist with teaching the story of Gettysburg, but this summer, we’ve done some of our best work yet on this front.  Our 2018 interns –Frank Kline, Becca Stout, and Cooper Wingert– have organized a series of fascinating posts that tackle […]

“He said, in substance, Ninety years ago our fathers formed a Government consecrated to freedom and dedicated to the principle that all men are created equal.” Centralia (IL) Sentinel  November 26, 1863, from coverage of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Ninety years ago? Imagine being the Civil War-era reporter who did not believe that the phrase “Four score and […]

Alabama soldier Elihu Wesley Watson arrived in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863 as part of the Army of Northern Virginia’s shocking invasion of Pennsylvania –the one that culminated with the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863).  While he was on brief occupation duty in Carlisle at the end of June, Private Watson spent some […]

  For the first twenty years of its existence, there were no black veterans buried in the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg.  That famous military cemetery, where President Lincoln had spoken so eloquently about a “new birth of freedom,” was not integrated until 1884, with the burial of Henry Gooden, an African American Civil War soldier […]

Noted filmmaker Jake Boritt is coming to Carlisle on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 for a special free public showing and discussion of his latest film, “The Gettysburg Story,” a state-of-the-art documentary about the pivotal Civil War battle narrated by actor Stephen Lang.  What makes this film especially unique and cutting-edge is Boritt’s use of high-definition […]

On Tuesday evening, July 7, 1863, Abraham Lincoln responded to a “serenade” from a crowd outside the White House celebrating the wonderful news  received in Washington earlier that day that Vicksburg had finally surrendered to Union forces (actually on the Fourth of July, Independence Day). Speaking extemporaneously, the president struggled to find the right words […]

On July 2, 1863 at 5:40AM Isaac Taylor recorded in his diary that his regiment, the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, had arrived at Gettysburg. “Order from Gen. [John] Gibbon read to us in which he says this is to be the great battle of the war & that any soldier leaving ranks without leave […]

Sam Wilkeson was a war correspondent for the New York Times who had sons in the Union army, including Lt. Bayard Wilkeson, an artillery officer who was mortally wounded on the first day at Gettysburg. The story of Bayard’s death became a northern sensation since he was one of the youngest artillery officers in the […]

Early on the morning of July 1, 1863 Union soldiers met Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania after his initial invasion into the state. The first of three days of battle centered around Gettysburg and saw a promising start for the Confederate force. Confederates successfully pushed Union soldiers out of the town and […]

If you are interested in spending a semester away from your home institution but don’t feel like heading for western Europe, and are a Civil War buff, the Gettysburg Semester is probably right for you.  The Gettysburg Semester, directed by Lincoln Scholar Allen C. Guelzo, is a semester designed to dive students into Civil War […]