Civil War Journal
View across the wheatfields of Cemetery Ridge
More Battle of Gettyburg information
The United States Sanitary Commission
By Tony DeLacy
The Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861. During that same month, a dedicated group of 55 women met in New York with the purpose of consolidating all of the...
The United States Christian Commission
By Tony DeLacy
The United States Christian Commission, like the U.S. Sanitary Commission, came into existence during the first year of the Civil War. Delegates from various...
The George Spangler Farm
By Tony DeLacy
When people read, talk and write about the Battle of Gettysburg, they often glance over the farms mentioned in battle accounts. The connection...
Camp Letterman
By Tony DeLacy
Camp Letterman was a large, temporary general hospital established at Gettysburg on July 20, 1863. The first mention of establishing a general...
Benner's Hill-July 2, 1863
By Tony DeLacy
Benner’s Hill is one of the little known, rarely visited locations on the Gettysburg Battlefield. However, on the afternoon of July 2, 1863...
The Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg
By Tony DeLacy
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln dedicated the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg. His address took little more than 2 minutes and...
Who were the soldiers at Gettysburg?
By Jim Martin
As a licensed battlefield guide, I suggest various perspectives and interpretations about the battlefield. Over the next few issues, I invite you to think about the battlefield in some obvious and perhaps some not so obvious ways...
Artillery at Gettysburg?
By Jim Martin
Shortly after 1 p.m. on July 3, 1863, Confederates near the Sherfy peach orchard fired on the Union position about a mile away on Cemetery Ridge, near the area now called the “High Water Mark.” For the next hour...
DeLue’s triad
By Jim Martin
Donald DeLue—noted for his sculptures Washington at Prayer at Valley Forge and the Spirit of American Youth at Omaha Beach, Normandy, France—gracefully summarizes the Confederacy’s short history and its long memory...
Lee’s Postwar Image and the Virginia State Memoria
By Jim Martin
In the post-Civil War era, the white South created the image of Robert E. Lee as the consummate military commander of the war. Ignoring the facts of a bitter defeat, former Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon said in 1870, “Lee could not be beaten: Overpowered … he might be, but never defeated” and “Lee was never really beaten...
The Virginia State Memorial: Retributive Justice and the Bold Cavalier
By Jim Martin
In the previous issue, our focus turned to the Virginia State Memorial and Robert E. Lee’s postwar image. In this issue, the focus turns to some of the other important iconography on...
Southern Women and the Memory of the Civil War
By Jim Martin
The Alabama State Memorial illustrates a very important component of the southern memory of the Civil War—both the image and the role of white Southern women. With state...
The Pennsylvania Memorial at Gettysburg
By Jim Martin
The Pennsylvania Memorial at Gettysburg National Military Park recently passed the 100th anniversary of its dedication. Erected in 1910 at the extravagant cost...
Eternal Light Peace Memorial at Gettysburg
By Jim Martin
Located on Oak Hill overlooking the Gettysburg National Military Park is the nation’s premier monument to national reconciliation after the Civil War—the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. On the same location 25 years earlier...
The ‘High Water Mark’ at Gettysburg
By Jim Martin
One of the most visited spots at Gettysburg National Military Park is the High Water Mark Memorial on Cemetery Ridge.
It marks the site of the bloody repulse...