ECW’s good friend Michael Hardy, one of the best regimental-level historians working in the business today, took to the stage in the late morning to talk about the last days of the Confederacy in North Carolina. Of course, the last major battle of the western theater–by that point, all the way in eastern North Carolina–took place at Bentonville and the largest surrender of Confederate forces took place at Bennett Place in Durham.
So why does North Carolina’s ample Civil War story get so overlooked? Join me at ECW’s YouTube page for a quick conversation with Michael to find out more!
As a college professor, I don’t have to sit through many lectures (and I seldom, if ever, actually give any, preferring discussion-based lessons instead). So, it’s been a while since I’ve sat through a lecture and even longer since I’ve sat through one I really enjoyed. My ECW colleague Derek Maxfield gave me that pleasure yesterday afternoon, which is a little ironic considering the grim nature of his topic.
Once upon a time, in a decade not our own, a young “emerging” historian wrote a thesis paper for his master’s degree at Norwich University. The paper examined the eastern theater and the western theatre and asked, “Where was the Civil War won?”
Garry Adelman bills his photography presentations as “extravaganzas,” and he’s not stretching the point. Still photographs flash on a big screen in the corner of the room, but Garry’s ebullience as he talks about them radiates with the energy of a one-man Spielberg blockbuster. “I have a three-hour talk to give in 40 minutes,” he says to a laugh from the audience—and he successfully pulls it off.
In another couple of hours, the Marriott’s main ballroom will fill with nearly 200 teachers from across the U.S. They’ve assembled here in Raleigh, North Carolina, to participate in the 2019 National Teacher Institute sponsored by the American Battlefield Trust. For the next two days, they’ll attend workshops and listen to presentations about a wide range of historical topics and pedagogical approaches; on Saturday, they’ll disburse on field trips that concentrate on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and Civil Rights.