The Gettysburg Compiler

O’er Silent Fields

Followers of the Compiler may remember a piece I wrote in the early autumn of 2013 on the last stand of the 16^th Maine Regiment of Volunteer Infantry on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. As I am living in Gettysburg this summer while I work as a Brian C. Pohanka intern in Gettysburg College’s Special Collections, I of course could not miss the chance to hike up to the location of that stand on Oak Ridge to pay tribute to those boys from Maine.

As I crested the ridge just north of town, I was struck by the historical dissonance of the panorama in front of me. So much has occurred in 151 years. Ribbons of tar and asphalt stretch across the gently sloping hills; great mechanical beasts wind their way around mute stone sentinels; the chatter of children lurks ever in the background.

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Pohanka Interns and the Presence of the Past

By Jill Ogline Titus

Over the past four years, nearly 70 Gettysburg College students have completed summer internships at some of the nation’s leading Civil War sites through the CWI’s Brian C. Pohanka Internship Program. These students have spent their summers giving public tours, working with museum collections, conducting educational programs and archival research, engaging visitors in conversations, and experiencing the rewards and challenges of doing historical work in the public sphere.

This summer, we’ve asked our interns to reflect on the approaches to history modeled by visitors to their sites, and more broadly, on the nature and character of popular understandings of the past.

While we’ve all heard the laments that Americans have scant interest in or respect for the past, the little research that’s been done to date on popular attitudes toward history actually provides a tantalizing rejoinder to this narrative of gloom and doom.

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#cwi2014

By Ian Isherwood ’00, ‘Digital Historian’

I feel a little strange writing a reflective blog since I helped staff CWI 2014. Obviously, I am happy that conference went well, that our attendees and speakers were happy, and I am very proud of my co-workers for pulling off another great event. But it seems propagandist to point these things out. So I am just going to give a few observations, for whatever they’re worth.

The program was really well structured. There was a superb blend of topics/lectures that gave something for everyone. More importantly, the program emphasized what has been a running theme of the sesquicentennial: this is not your grandfather’s Civil War. Traditional military history certainly has its place and is extremely relevant and interesting, but the CWI blended military history with other fields, to make for a more comprehensive ‘war and society’ approach.

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The Last Day

By Ian Isherwood ’00

Today was one of touring and teaching. Our attendees examined Gettysburg through the eyes of soldiers on their morning tours. Then they spent the afternoon in classrooms engaging with a wide variety of topics.

Here were our tours:

Michael S. Schroyer of the 147th Pennsylvania led by Sue Boardman
William C. Ward of the 4th Alabama led by Garry Adelman
William Henry Francis of the 14th U.S. Regulars led by John Rudy
Lieutenant J. Warren Jackson of the 8th Louisiana Infantry (Louisiana Tigers) led by Ed Bearss & Scott Mingus
Colonel David Ireland of the 137th New York led by Jennifer Murray
Private Reuben Ruch of the 153rd Pennsylvania led by Charlie Fennell

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Day Three: Tours

By Ian Isherwood ’00, Field Correspondent

Like Bob Dylan, we tour every year.

Our Civilwarpalooza started at 7:15 AM, a bracing hour, when our tour busses loaded and departed for Virginia. A sixth bus left later for Monocacy, their late rise something envied by us all.

(Sidebar: It has been exactly one year since I have used a clipboard. The experience of checking in attendees, ticking their names off my list with a sense of invented authority, perhaps one of the most satisfying of bureaucratic activities.)

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The Second Day

By Ian Isherwood ’00

Like yesterday, breakfast was a success. (The addition of bacon was a wise choice by the folks at Servo. The shredded cheese next to the scrambled eggs, perhaps, a stroke of genius.) Warmed with coffee and bacon, adorned all manner of Civil War related sartoria, our conference attendees packed the ballroom for the day’s work of understanding different angles on the war in 1864.

It is hard not to see the Gettysburg College Ballroom as one of the great fields of honor for Civil War historians. Here Civil Warriors introduce new ideas, revisit old interpretations, frolic in Clio’s fruitful orchard searching for the right ingredients for their ambrosia.

And today there was an intoxicating elixir concocted by our presenters. At the start was Keith Bohannon presenting on Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. With a military map towering over his head, Bohannon argued that Sherman’s great legacy was one of supply and maneuver and not battlefield success. The anxious general was a master logistician – one unmatched by his foes – and the Atlanta campaign demonstrates what a talented Civil War general could do with an army of high morale under him, political support above him, and the ability to resupply his army behind. Bohannon took a well-known story and gave it some analytical heft.

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The First (real) Day

By Ian Isherwood ’00

Our first full day of CWI 2014 began with a hearty breakfast at the college dining hall (Servo). Armies, they say, march on their stomachs (and whatnot), and our army of Civil Warriors received the necessary sustenance of made-to-order omelets and assorted cereals to confront the day’s historiography.

Well-breakfasted, the ballroom was packed full of attendees by 8:30, all carrying their travelers of coffee (or tea) and waiting for CWI Director Peter Carmichael to speak on Robert E. Lee’s elusive search for a battle of annihilation. With C-Span and PCN’s cameras filming, we began.

Carmichael emphasized that commanders in the Civil War made decisions based on many different factors, not all of them represented in the established historiography. A neglected factor by many historians is the culture of sensibility, a prominent part of the worldview of all Americans 150 years ago. Notions of sensibility shaped nineteenth century men like Lee, men who were concerned, at their core, with matters of honor. Lee’s sense of heroic masculinity, argued Carmichael, influenced his command decisions. Carmichael challenged us in a fundamental way: to understand the past we need to immerse ourselves in the way people felt about the choices they were making, and not just on the decisions they made (or didn’t).

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And we’re off

By Ian Isherwood ’00

The CWI Staff congregated at command central/swag center at 7:30 this morning to finalize the work we needed to do to make sure that every nametag was printed, every key and meal card allocated, every swag bag stacked behind our registration tables.

After months of preparation, The War in 1864 was taking shape, the ballroom practically crying for the attentions of our always captivated (and captivating) Civil Warriors.

However, one should not violate the essential secrecy of bureaucratic inner-workings, so the less said about our staff discussions over linen procurement and nametag sorting the better.

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Prelude: CWI 2014

By Ian Isherwood ’00

Tomorrow begins CWI 2014. The conference this year is on the war in 1864 and features a wide array of speakers. The program reflects an impressive assortment of historians covering enough topics to please just about everyone. This year there will be over 400 attendees and 38 speakers and guides.

The CWI staff has been busy this week preparing for so many civil warriors descending upon our normally quiet (at least in the summer) liberal arts college. Our staff has been going over guest lists, checking names off spreadsheets, answering phone and email inquiries, creating nametags, folding and refolding merchandise, stacking books and boxes, and making the college ballroom a welcome place for conference guests. This afternoon culminated in the assembly line creation of over 400 guest swag bags, a process that took five people 2.5 hours.

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