Grape & Canister
A roundup of Civil War news, books, videos, and an Otis pic.
As I mentioned last week, I’ve pretty much wrapped up my biography of Robert Gould Shaw. I am in the process of reviewing the manuscript and checking endnotes. It’s a time consuming process, but I hope to finally submit the manuscript to the publisher some time next week.
News
Many of you read my most recent post, but likely didn’t get my update regarding the status of the Virginia bill that, if passed, would cancel the UDC’s tax-exempt status. I thought Gov. Youngkin’s ‘recommendations’ were just that, but apparently the legislature must consider them before the bill can be passed. I apologize for the confusion.
I really enjoyed this blog post by my friend and fellow historian Ethan Kutzler on relic hunting. Check it out.
Students at Gettysburg College have been working on a project that analyzes Civil War monuments. Here is the latest installment on North Carolina. Fascinating stuff.
Speaking of Gettysburg College, in addition to the annual conference which I highly recommend, this summer the Civil War Institute will also host a program geared specifically for high school students. Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.
My friend Stan Deaton at the Georgia Historical Society recently interviewed David Blight about his new book on the deep connections at Yale University with slavery as well as Frederick Douglass. This is a wonderful conversation.
Books
In case you missed it, earlier this week I did a short video about a few of the books that are currently on my reading stand.
Add one more…
Matthew Stewart, An Emancipation of the Mind: Radical Philosophy, the War over Slavery, and the Refounding of America (Norton, 2024).
Videos
Here is a preview of the new movie “Civil War” that is sending everyone into a tizzy. The commentary that I’ve been reading over the past few days and the references to the Civil War is little more than fear mongering. My advice is to watch the movie and take a cold shower. It’s going to be OK.
Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston recently visisted the site of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.”
In this moving video, a veteran of the Vietnam War visits Stones River battlefield.
Historian Jonathan White recently delivered a talk on his most recent book Shipwrecked, which I highly recommend.
Otis
You can imagine Otis’s response when I read this excerpt from a letter that Robert Gould Shaw wrote to his mother on August 7, 1853 from Switzerland.
“I’ve just been eating a little bit of boiled dog, and it wasn’t at all bad, only a little tough. I suppose he was rather old. A puppy would be better.”
Stares in disbelief.
I think I have said this before, but I am both an archaeologist and an historian. I found your friends blog post on relic collecting interesting. My archaeologist friends can be overzealous on the topic of relic hunting/collecting. Often this focuses on Native American sites and is as much about destroying culturally specific sites such as burials as it is collecting. In the context of indigenous archaeology most public or academic archaeologists excavating a particular site will invite local collectors to share what they have and know.
About 5 yrs ago I was involved in excavating a Civil War site in Mn. We invited local collectors to share and participate and got a limited response. I think that was do the nature of the site. My point is I think these practices among archaeologists are much more common than they were 20 yrs ago.
I will close by saying I was suprized during by recent visits to Gettysburg and Antietam at the no relic collecting signs. I had not seen that before at a national battlefield site. This suggests to me NPS sees relic collecting at such places as an issue.
As a person born on April 9, 1965, I believe it should be a federal holiday. Definitely.