He has been a permanent ranger and historian and Richmond National Battlefield Park since 2003. One thing he is well known for his his website, civil war richmond. I tell my students there are so much junk and garbage online in terms of civil war sources, this is one of the best websites relating to the civil war i have ever seen. I got a lot of good stuff from mike ross website. Deftly go see mikes website. Definitely go see that. He served as a Technical Advisor on the set of lincoln. And is serving as an advisor for free state jones, which is coming out with matthew mcconaughey. I yesterday got the magazine of virginia history and they are graffiti. There biography. The new issue is on lincolns visit to richmond at the end of the war. There is an excellent article. The talk this evening is on photo forensics. Richmond, 1865. Please welcome him. Michael gorman i am miced up. Can anybody hear me . I hate podiums. First things first. Was anybody here for the last time i spoke in 2010 .
Much for being here for the leadoff. [applause] david thanks. Great questions. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] American History tv recently visited longwood university. Next Michael Gordon talks about richmond in 1865 and what historians can learn from photographs. His talk is just under an hour. Our next speaker is Michael Gordon. He did a great presentation. Amazing photographs. You will see more of them today. He grew up in richmond. Working for the National Park service. He has been a permanent ranger and historian and Richmond National Battlefield Park since 2003. One thing he is well known for his his website, civil war richmond. I tell my students there are so much junk and garbage online in terms of civil war sources, this is one of the best websites relating to the civil war i have ever seen. I got a lot of good stuf
Yesterday got the magazine of virginia history and biography. The new issue is on lincolns visit to richmond at the end of the war. There is an excellent article. The talk this evening is on photo forensics. Richmond, 1865. Please welcome him. [applause] Michael Gorman i am miced up. Can anybody hear me . I hate podiums. First things first. Was anybody here for the last time i spoke in 2010 . Wow. We got some new people and some veterans. This is great. I was thinking about, what did i talk about in 2010 . I dont remember. So this is a completely new taking what i love to do picking apart the photographs. Finding the stories within them. The best of. There are over 500 images i could show you. I am showing you about 60. If you want more, we will hang out sometime and do that. [applause] [laughter] photo forensics. You might also call this a love letter to the library of congress. The reason is, in 2003 or so the library of congress digitized their original negatives and put them online
Stedman in 1865 where a general wants to launch an assault by having one of the pickets fire a warning shot. In doing so the century pauses and yells out before firing the shot, hey, yank were just out gathering some corn and then fires a shot because he wants to clear his conscious because they have inthis informal truce that no one will fire on either side. There are newspaper boys from richmond who go through the lines to sell papers. There are sketches in newspapers that even record it. Its not undmoncommon during the civil war in petersburg. It is interesting that the initial act was translated into english in 1859. One last question here. Im from michigan. I have a question about the desertion rate during the siege. Could you estimate the percentage . You know, i cant. I have no facts or figures as to a percentage of. However, it becomes such a concern for both armies that the confederates will do just about everything in their power because of the amount of desertion desertion,
For preservation was initiated in the 1880s and 1890s when the veterans were at the height of their power in government and Industry Leaders and all of them. It was because battlefields ironically these places of conflict could become places of comfort. So americans always put tremendous emphasis on these places as a tool of reconciliation. The key part of the battlefield that came from the sons of confederate veterans stipulated the government would care for this battlefield and not detract from the glory. The dedication speech i helped managed. 1927, said the keynote speaker said we do more than dedicate these fields in memory of things that have passed. We consecrate them in the spirit of lee and lincoln to a more perfect understanding to south and north. For the next 50 years or so would faithfully carry out that charge. Where americans can come together and understand the war in a very human level. Just to give you a sense of how deep this tradition is and how its perceived by the