Cover Page

Table of Contents

Introduction

Executive Summary

Interpretation of
the Civil War

Accomplishments
to Date

Review of Current Conditions

Future of Civil War Interpretation

Projected Future Work

Obstacles to Success

Addenda

The NPS has been working to develop a more effective scholarship-based presentation of the themes in the parks, including that of slavery and the Civil War. A great portion of this work has been aimed at improving subject matter knowledge, linking the work of the research historian with the work of field interpreters, and an improved training program for field interpreters. Here are a few of the things that have been accomplished to date.

A. Improved Interpretive Programs and Media

• Appomattox Courthouse NHP has developed, in conjunction with

  Booker T. Washington NHS, a teacher’s curriculum packet that specifically focuses on slavery, the meaning of freedom, and the legacy of Reconstruction. It touches upon slavery as a cause of the Civil War with the expectation that the student has already studied slavery and the causes of the War. The park also has a comprehensive education curriculum package that is in the final stages of development by Longwood College that is specifically geared to the Virginia Standards of Learning and has modules which will address both the overall causes and effects of the Civil War and the role of slavery.

• Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial has a high school program that focuses on the issues leading up to the Civil War and the impacts the War had on all those who lived at Arlington, slave and free. Students participate in an orientation visit to the site followed by a research project in the classroom and culminating with the writing of skits that are performed in costume at the site.
• Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania NMP has ten African-American soldiers who are interred in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery (5 Civil War era, 5 post-Civil War era). Maps indicating the locations of the graves are available as handouts at the Cemetery. One of the key Confederate artillery positions on the Fredericksburg Battlefield was the Bernard Cabins - a cluster of modest dwellings where Alfred Bernard’s slaves resided. New interpretive signs are being installed to include this information on the trail to the site.
• Harpers Ferry NHP is planning a major interpretive event to commemorate the 200 th anniversary of John Brown’s birth in May 2000. Brown’s attempts to defeat pro-slavery forces in Kansas and his unsuccessful effort to launch a massive slave rebellion in Harpers Ferry both contributed to the onset of the Civil War. Because the controversies surrounding Brown’s radical abolitionism can lead to a false impression that he was merely an individual zealot acting on his own, the park felt it was important to understand Brown’s actions in connection with the abolitionist movement and the institution of slavery. To facilitate this understanding, the park will be hosting a special museum exhibit called “Before Freedom Came” during the 200 th anniversary events in May. This highly regarded exhibit was originally developed by the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA and converted into a traveling format by the Smithsonian. This exhibit will be on display in the park from February through the end of the John Brown bicentennial events on May 17, 2000.
• Manassas NBP’s “Baptism of Fire” program looks at soldier/citizen life during the 1st Battle of Manassas. The program includes a discussion of Mrs. Henry (first casualty of the battle) and her relationship to her enslaved African American maid.
• Petersburg NB’s camp program is a very diverse program. It deals with and features a private with the United States Colored Troops, a woman Sanitary Commission Officer, a white woman soldier, and a free African- American woman behind the Union lines.
• Richmond NBP has on exhibit the story of the fourteen United States Colored Troops who won the medal of honor at the Battle of New Market Heights that was fought on the outskirts of Richmond in 1864. Richmond NBP is also designing new exhibits for a visitor center, which deal directly and clearly with the causes of the Civil War. The following is the final draft text for the first and largest panel:

The Civil War (1861-1865) remains the central event in American history. Richmond was at the heart of the conflict. More than seventy years after the adoption of the Constitution, a nation founded on principles of liberty and equality still allowed human enslavement and quarreled over the balance between state and federal powers. These interrelated issues led to Constitutional crises that were merely patched over, satisfying neither North nor South. The growing nation became increasingly divided over the existence and expansion of slavery.

Lincoln’s election to the Presidency in 1860 convinced many southern leaders that their slave-based economy and social order would be threatened by federal restrictions. Seven states quickly passed articles of secession and created the Confederate States of America. After the new Confederacy fired on a federal fort in Charleston harbor and Lincoln called for troops to preserve the Union, Virginia joined the Confederacy and prepared to resist invasion.

Richmond, the Confederate capital and industrial center of the South, was a major objective of Union strategy for four years. As war began, neither side anticipated the brutal clashes, long sieges, and home front destruction that brought death or injury to more than one million Americans and devastation to a broad landscape, much of it in Virginia.

This is the last, and also larger than normal, panel: Beginning as a war to determine the preservation or the division of the United States. The Civil War ended in emancipation for four million Americans as well as preservation of the Union. Three Constitutional amendments – the Thirteenth, the Fourteenth, and fifteenth – promised former slaves freedom and rights as citizens. The war decisively answered the question of whether states might leave the Union, and shifted the balance of political power toward the federal level.
But much remained unresolved in Richmond and in the nation. The war did not solve issues of racial prejudice, nor did it establish final meanings for freedom and equality in the United States. These meanings began to evolve in law, practice, and history as soon as the war ended.

After the war, Richmond witnessed both commemorations and celebrations of the Civil War. Many white Richmonders tended graves and erected memorials, while blacks honored emancipation with parades and religious services. How well Richmonders, and the rest of America, could overcome their divisions was a challenge for the future.

B. Gilder Lehrman Seminars
These Seminars sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History on the “Origins of New World Slavery” at Yale University and the “Abolition and the Underground Railroad” at Amherst College have been offered annually since 1995 and have been attended each year by NPS employees. In addition special two-day seminars on these topics were designed exclusively for NPS employees by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and were attended by twenty-five NPS students in 1998 and 1999.

C. Critical Issues in Civil War History Seminar
In August 1998, the NPS History Program conducted a two-day seminar on the Civil War, its causes, and its role in American society. The workshop was conducted by Professors Ed Ayres (University of Virginia), James O. Horton (George Washington University), Ed Linenthal (University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh), and Barbara Franco of the Historical Society of Washington, DC.

D. Gettysburg Workshops
Last summer Gettysburg NMP staff workshops were offered to get the “real war” into interpretive programs. Dialogues between scholars and the staff are created as a way to strip the romanticism away from the war. Each workshop was organized around a short reading with the scholar serving as moderator, guiding the discussion in relationship to the most recent scholarship, rather than a serving as a lecturer. In addition to the workshops the scholar made presentations to the general public. Some titles include: “Soldier Motivation” “The Gettysburg Address and American Liberty,” “Who Freed the Slaves?” “On the Sidelines of War?” and “Southern Women and the Confederate War Effort.”

E. Slavery Studies
National Capital Region has begun a series of slavery studies at their sites. They have completed a study of slave life at the Arlington House. Currently they are working on a history of Ferry Hill Plantation on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal NHP. This history will provide an in-depth study of AfricanAmericans who worked on the canal. Through a cooperative agreement with Howard University they are working on a study of slave life at Oxon Hill Farm in Prince Georges County, Maryland. They are also funding an Underground Railroad study for the District of Columbia and adjoining counties.

F. Interpretive Training Program
Field interpreters are asked to demonstrate competencies in such things as the interpretive talk, presenting demonstrations, interpretive writing and media development. These ten demonstrated competencies are directed at improving the delivery of interpretation programs to the public.

G. Organization of American Historians Interpretive Assessments
The NPS has been working with historians who are members of the Organization of American Historians to review public programming at the parks and make recommendations. To date there have been reviews at Antietam National Battlefied (1996), Richmond National Battlefield Park (1997), and Gettysburg National Military Park (1998).

H. Civil War Internet Sites All Civil War parks have a basic homepage on ParkNet and 15 parks have advanced sites that offer a variety of information about the parks and the Civil War. Vicksburg NMP has an outstanding homepage. Harpers Ferry NHP, Fort Scott NHS, Gettysburg NMP, and Antietam NB also have good sites. Fort Scott and Vicksburg NMP have interesting materials on AfricanAmericans. Fort Pulaski NM website at http://www.nps.gov/fopu/local/ civilwar.htm addresses the causes of the Civil War.

I. Cooperating Association Book Stores Cooperating associations, in partnership with the NPS operate sales areas at each of the Civil War sites that offer a variety of educational items. These sales areas provide an opportunity to supplement the park programs of personal services and media by offering the public materials on the themes of the park. Seven cooperating associations are in partnership with the Civil War sites. These include: Eastern National, Harpers Ferry Historical Association, Jefferson National Parks Association, Kennesaw Mountain Historical Association, Inc., Parks and History Association, and Southwest Parks and Monument Association. Gross sales in FY 1999 were $7,065,122.

J. CRM Issue “Slavery and Resistance”
In 1998, the National Park Service published a special issue of CRM (Cultural Resources Management) that dealt with slavery and resistance to slavery including the underground railroad. Professor James O. Horton of George Washington University contributed an article entitled “Confronting Slavery and Revealing the ‘Lost Cause,’” which directly presents slavery as the core cause of secession.

K. Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields
This 1993 report identified the significant Civil War sites, determined their condition, assessed threats to their integrity, and offered alternatives for their preservation and interpretation. Protecting the battlefields preserves an important educational asset for the nation.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/ICWS/icws_accomp.htm