Histori historians talk about artifacts featured in their joint publication, the civil war in 50 objects. In this program they discuss items related to the end of the war and president Abraham Lincolns assassination. This conversation took place online, and the New York Historical society provided the video. Good evening and welcome to the eighth and final episode of the history hour. Tonights topic is saving the union and ending the civil war at the battlefield and the ballot box. As always i want to remind you that tonights program which is being recorded will last approximately 45 minutes. This includes 15 minutes for questions and answers. Please submit your questions via the q a function on your zoom screen at any time during the talk. We will respond to as many as possible during the final part of the program. And now, saving the union and ending the civil war. So our series has argued that an aggregate objects and documents have the singular power to convey a narrative in your c
That tonights program, which is being recorded, will last approximately 45 minutes. This includes 15 minutes for questions and answers. Please submit your questions via the q a function on your zoom screen at any time during the talk. We will respond to as many as possible during the final part of the program. And now, saving the union and ending the civil war. So our series has argued that in aggregate, objects and documents have the singular power to convey a sweeping historical narrative, in our case, the story of the civil war. So harold, now looking back on the book, which inspired the series, the civil war and 50 objects, are there any objects or documents among the plethora of choices we had in new york historics collection that you wish we had been able to include . Oh, from the book . I would say we covered the waterfront pretty well in terms of diversifying the choices. I guess a couple of regrets for time reasons was the handwritten diary of George Templeton strong, perhaps,
Historical park and its about an hour and 10 minutes. Noah there are some odd themes going on here. Want to knowledge, i agree with him to a great degree. I will note that for this writer, there was a case where i think to tell an important story, you find yourself moving into realms of speculation where the evidence may not exist, but the suggestion of what has happened seems reasonably solid. A lot of what i am going to be talking about is the process of this book. All of you have seen the dvds with the special features section, and i guess this is the making of this book. For me, it took me into areas i had never gone before in terms of having to handle material. All the battle books ive read the information, a value weight the nature of sources, try to piece it together in a way that made sense, both in terms of the topography, what we knew, and what they were saying. Out of that comes the story. This particular story, the 16 days in march and april of 1865 that Abraham Lincoln spe
Casualties in getting to the same place. They maintain great hope lee would triumph. Certain that lee and his men would somehow inflict a fatal blow to the norths willingness to fight. In the union army that june, soldiers saw the spires of richmond just eight miles away. Union soldiers, too, gained hope from that. But recognized, too, how hard those last eight miles would be. A pennsylvania soldier wrote of the moment, in the prospects, theres a magic influence in the expression as it passes from lip to lip. Eight miles from richmond, boys. Only eight miles from richmond. What treasure, what a restored peaceful happy in the United Country and the a free government can pay for the precious blood that must be shed in the inexpressible sufferings that must be endured before this short distance can be accomplished. That pennsylvanian could not likely have imagined just how painful the answer to that question would be. We hope that you will join us, the staff here at fredericksburg and pos
The casualties were astounding, a stouinstounding to soldiers, generals and those left back home. Amidst the staggering losses at cole harbor, for every soldier killed, wounded or captured, there was a family. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters that also felt the loss. The loss of the men that fell at cole harbor in the spring of 1864 reverb rasreverberated thr kmunlts a communities across the north and south. The battlegrounds left indelible kbag impacts on the living left behind. So, too, were the believes of the men who fought that bloody spring. Indeed, in spite of so many lost lives, those believes and ideas about nation, government and home became even more deeply enslie enshrined in the hearts and minds of those left to fight on tonight to reflect upon and learn from today. Writing soon after the war with a perspective on hindsight. Sally putnam came to believe that in its own unique way, cole harbor had been a landmark event in the 1866 Campaign Across Central