Some Readings for Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend is upon us. While it's customary to enjoy a holiday, a barbecue, a get-together with friends, neighbors, or family, it's also important to remember why we recognize this day: to remember the people who died for our country and us. 

The idea of national cemeteries started during the Civil War, still the most murderous war America has ever been involved in. Emerging Civil War has been posting short articles about some of the cemeteries associated with the war, and I've added Gettysburg.

Memorial Day and National Cemeteries – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Civil War.

 

Shiloh National Cemetery – Gregory Metz at Emerging Civil War.

 

Winchester National Cemetery – Jon Tracey at Emerging Civil War.

 

City Point National Cemetery – Tim Talbott at Emerging Civil War.

 

Fredericksburg National Cemetery – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Culpepper National Cemetery – Emerging Civil War.

 

The Gettysburg Address – Abraham Lincoln Online.

 

Gettysburg National Cemetery – American Battlefield Trust.

Santa Fe's Easily Forgotten Ties to the Civil War - Patrick Kelly-Fischer at Emerging Civil War.

Contrasting National and Local Cemeteries at Camp Parapet in New Orleans - Neil Chatelain at Emerging Civil War. 

Stones River National Cemetery - Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Civil War.

Glendale National Cemetery - Doug Crenshaw at Emerging Civil War.

Gettysburg National Cemetery - Brian Swartz at Emerging Civil War.

Chalmette National Cemetery and Nashville National Cemetery - Sean Michael Chick at Emerging Civil War.

New Bern National Cemetery - Tim Talbot at Emerging Civil War.

Andersonville National Cemetery - Derek Mayfield at Emerging Civil War.

 

Photograph: Gettysburg National Military Park by Danaisa Rodriguez via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

"The Battle of Franklin" by A.S. Peterson

I’ve been reading fictional treatments of the Civil War lately: Shelby Foote’s Novel Shiloh; Stephen Vincent Benet’s epic poem John Brown’s Body; Stephen Crane’s novel The Red Badge of Courage; and Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott. I’ve tried to get into E.L. Doctorow’s novel The March, which should be a slam dunk given the subject is Sherman’s march through Georgia, but I’ve started and stopped three times. I’ll give it another go and either succeed or admit defeat.  

The Battle of Franklin: A Tale of a House Divided is a stage play script by A.S. Peterson. With songs (even though it’s not a musical) Patrick Thomas, the play was commissioned by Studio Tenn and produced in 2016. It was a challenge rather admirably met; depicting a battle on the theatrical stage is a difficult feat to pull off, but Peterson does it.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

2023 Year in Review – Honorable Mentions – Civil War Books and Authors.

 

What is the True Nature of Ebenezer Scrooge? – Titus Techera at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Jews in the Land of Israel – poem by Yehuda Amichai.

 

Uptown Gothic: The NYC Photographs of Thaddeus Wilkerson – Michael Gonzales at CrimeReads. 

"the Civil War in Mississippi: Major Campaigns and Battles" by Michael Ballard

If there is a state we most associate with the American Civil War, it is Virginia. Numerous battles occurred there; the federal and confederate armies faced each other for four years, most often in a stalemate; and the two enemy capitals ensured that Virginia was a major theater of the war. And it was in Virginia that Robert E. Lee ultimately surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.  

Some have argued that the United States really won the war farther west – the fall of New Orleans and Vicksburg, the battles around Nashville and Chattanooga, the capture of Atlanta in 1864, and Sherman’s March to the Sea. 

 

And then there was Mississippi, the second state (after South Carolina) to secede from the Union. The Civil War in Mississippi was more – far more – than Vicksburg. Historian Michael Ballard (1946-2016) tells the story in The Civil War in Mississippi: Major Campaigns and Battles (2011). The book is volume 5 of the Heritage of Mississippi published by the University Press of Mississippi for the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.