There were dreams of recapturing faded glory as the USS Monitor headed south under clear skies toward Confederate seaports 150 years ago last December.The crew’s hope was “trying our metal against rebel works and making the ‘Little Monitor’ once again a household word,” William Keeler, the ship’s assistant paymaster, later wrote. They had been a [...]
Posts Tagged ‘WashingtonDC’
Posted in 
Tags: 
This week in history: America stepped closer to Civil War with the Dred Scott case
March 7th, 2013 
javal On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court reached its decision in the landmark case “Dred Scott vs. Sandford.” The case had profound consequences throughout the country and moved the United States closer to Civil War. Dred Scott had been born a slave in Virginia sometime in the 1790s. After migrating with his master [...]
Photographic Artifacts of Black Civil War Troops
February 25th, 2013 javal In reality, African-American prisoners of war were killed en masse. Black troops in action endured lower wages and poorer medical care and living conditions than their white counterparts. But soldiers of both races did have surprisingly easy access to the luxury of photography. Photographers ran government-sanctioned booths near encampments, selling souvenir portraits. The images of [...]
Photo Interactive: The Civil War, Now in Living Color
February 25th, 2013 javal The photographs taken by masters such as Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner have done much for the public’s perception of the Civil War. But all of their work is in black and white. The battlefield of Gettysburg is remembered as a shade of grey and the soldiers as ghostly daguerreotype images. Photography was in its [...]
At War With Art
February 22nd, 2013 javal “The Civil War and American Art,” the current exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, marks the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. After it closes in late April, the show will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for most of the rest of 2013. To complement the show, the [...]
Civil War Photography Gets 3-D Treatment in New Exhibit at the Castle
September 20th, 2012 javal During the Civil War, Americans followed the battles at home with collectable photographs of generals and prints of the battlefields that were published in the daily newspaper. But an earlier technology, stereophotography—a form of 19th-century 3-D imaging—also allowed people to view photographs from the field using a hand-held device called stereoviewer. Now, visitors to the [...]
Civil War Trust debuting its latest battle app: Second Battle of Manassas
August 29th, 2012 javal The Civil War Trust is rolling out a new “battle app” to mark the 150th anniversary of the Second Battle of Manassas. The battle application making its debut Tuesday includes video featuring top historians and topographical maps, among other features. The free smartphone application is the latest in a series developed by the trust on [...]
DYNAMIC LESSON PLANS PRODUCED FOR CIVIL WAR TRUST’S FIFTH ANNUAL CONTEST
August 27th, 2012 javal The Civil War Trust, the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the hallowed ground of Civil War battlefields, and History®, the leading destination for factual television entertainment, are pleased to announce the winners in their fifth annual Civil War Lesson Plan Contest. The contest encouraged teachers to combine primary source material with their own [...]