In Louisiana, the Union launches an ambitious offensive to seize the strategically-vital city of New Orleans - the Confederacy’s largest port and most populous city. But to reach New Orleans, the Union Navy must first punch a hole through the city’s outer defensive fortifications guarding the mou...

On September 2nd, 1862, the Maryland Campaign officially began with the first cavalry skirmish at Mile Hill north of Leesburg. Over the next few days, Confederate divisions of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia started making their way into the town. From September 4th - 6th, the army crosses the Po...

Watch to learn the history of the Wide Awakes and find out who started them, what was their purpose, who would be a typical member, and why the torches! Thank you to the Waterloo Area Historical Society in Michigan for providing an amazing setting at twilight.

Learn about the heavy guns of the Civil War and the artillerymen than manned them. Civil War artillery includes everything from mortars and siege guns to rifled cannons and Columbiads. Learn about the heavy artillery, the logistics behind them, and also hear about the "red-legged infantry" regim...

Ranger Karlton Smith will highlight some of the outstanding objects from the park's collection, with a focus on naval artifacts and the stories behind them.

The 89th Ohio regiment formally mustered into service at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 1, 1862. The 89th joined the Army of the Cumberland’s advance on Chickamauga, Georgia, where the Battle of Chickamauga erupted on September 19 and 20, 1863. Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s...

This nonsense song ranks with "Oh! Susanna" as one of Foster's best. Not especially popular in its early days, "Camptown Races" earned Foster royalties of only $101.25 in its first seven years (representing a total sales of 5,000 copies at two cents apiece). Debuted by the ubiquitous Christy Mins...

Join Ranger Troy Harman and examine how Gettysburg battlefield monuments and their landscaped spaces formed a sacred bridge between the battlefield and otherworldly places.

The Appalachian folk melody was a favorite of mountain fiddlers and banjo players known as “The Gospel Train (Get on Board)”. “Cindy”, also known as “Get Along Home, Cindy”, using the tune from “The Gospel Train”, first appears as a North Carolina folk song in a book of collected folk tales by An...

“In cold or rainy weather…they are most unwholesome tenements, and to enter one of them of a rainy morning from the outer air, and encounter the nights accumulation of nauseating exhalations from the bodies of twelve men was an experience which no old solder has ever known to recall with any grea...

After being unable to stop the unrelenting Federal advance against his rear lines at the Battle of South Mountain while the rest of his army is separated throughout Maryland and Virginia, Confederate General Robert E Lee makes the difficult decision to end his campaign before he loses the rest of...

This program will highlight and illustrate Presidential speeches, visits, and letters at Gettysburg and on the battlefield after Abraham Lincoln's seminal address. Twenty-six Presidents have come to Gettysburg to comment or to reflect on its lasting legacy in American history. All took a memory w...

Explore what it was like to dig in as a Civil War soldier. A veteran's account from the war is used as a guide to the work. Chesley A. Mosman was in the 59th Illinois and he provides great details on what pickets were doing to entrench outside Chattanooga in 1863.

After the Confederates invade the neutral border state of Kentucky in September of 1861, they begin to consolidate a foothold in the southern regions of the Blue Grass State. In January of 1862, a Confederate force from the District of East Tennessee, operating in the Cumberland Gap in Eastern Ke...

The Battle of Shiloh begins as General Albert Sidney Johnston's Army of Mississippi launches its general attack on Major General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee encamped along Pittsburg Landing. The first day of the battle turns into a bloodbath for both sides, as the Confederates take G...

Daniel E. Sickles - General, Politician, Defendant, Ambassador, War Hero, and Commissioner of the NYMC. This program will explore the life of Dan Sickles in the post-war years, his struggle to maintain his reputation as the hero of Gettysburg, and his efforts to create and memorialize a battlefie...

After weeks of maneuvers and minor skirmishing, the Northern Virginia Campaign is about to reach its climax on the familiar battleground of Manassas, where thirteen months earlier the Union Army had suffered a humiliating defeat in the first major battle of the Civil War. This time, however, Unio...

Join historian and author D. Scott Hartwig for a wide ranging conversation on writing, the craft of history, and his new book, “I Dread the Thought of the Place” – The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign.

This being the last live concert by the legendary 2nd South Carolina String Band, performed in Gettysburg, PA November 15th 2024, Remembrance Day Weekend for the benefit of the Lomas Center Museum Gettysburg.