This Year Marks The 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War

27Jun11

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the American Civil War, an event that defined this nation’s history and changed a culture forever. On June 16, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln told a crowd in Philadelphia, “War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and duration, is one of the most terrible… It has destroyed property, and ruined homes… It has carried mourning to almost every home, until it can almost be said that the heavens are hung in black.”

 

It just doesn’t seem right to discuss the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War without mention of President Lincoln’s famous speech, The Gettysburg Address, which is forever immortalized at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. While most of us are familiar with the words “Four score and seven years ago…” from the Gettysburg Address, few know what they mean. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was the site of the American Civil War’s most famous and gruesome battle.  So if you’re not familiar with what is now considered the most famous speech in American history, here you have it:

 “ Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

 

This Speech forged the framework of modern America and in using only 272 words; President Abraham Lincoln was able to reaffirm the civic notion of equality. There are dozens of scheduled events in and around the Washington DC area this month set to commemorate the Civil War’s legacy in the continuing fight for civil rights.

 

Major Events and Special Exhibits

Ongoing beginning March 2011 – Capitol Visitor Center. Take a new tour entitled “Capitol and the Congress During the Civil War.” The tour is offered Monday through Friday at 3:30 p.m. and does not require reservations. With stops at the Old Supreme Court Chamber and the Old Senate Chamber, this special 45-minute tour explores how the Capitol was used during the Civil War, critical debates that took place during the Civil War, and key judicial decisions made during this time period.

 

Through August 13, 2011 – “The Last Full Measure: Civil War Photographs from the Liljenquist Family Collection.” Library of Congress. The exhibit includes more than 400 rarely displayed Civil War era portrait photographs that bring this pivotal moment in our nation’s history to life through the poignant faces of ordinary people who experienced it firsthand – Union and Confederate soldiers, their wives and children.

 

Through March 18, 2012 – National Portrait Gallery

8th and F Streets NW., Washington, DC. An exhibition will explore the life of Elmer Ellsworth, the first Union soldier killed in the war.

 

July 21-24, 2011 – Manassas 150th Anniversary Events – A major gathering of living history presenters will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first major battle, Manassas. The program will include living history and historic weapons demonstrations, exhibits, lectures, and music at a variety of locations in Old Town Manassas. Special ranger tours and programs will also be held at the Manassas National Battlefield Park.

 

Nov. 16, 2012 – April 28, 2013 -“The Civil War and American Art” – Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition examines how America’s artists represented the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath. Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Frederic Church and Sanford Gifford—four of America’s finest artists of the era—anchor the exhibition. “The Civil War and American Art” will include approximately 60 paintings, vintage photographs and battlefield photography.

 

 

 

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