View source for 471A3--Week 13 Questions/Comments--Thursday

'''NOTE: Please include name and link to Blogs you're discussing.'''


I thought this blog was interesting. I liked how it was a more of an “average joe's” perspective of the Civil War and the Sesquicentennial as opposed to a scholarly or academic viewpoint. He included a lot of various topics that revolve around the Civil War in his posts. He included, for example, a mentioning of an interview with the great great grandson of Grant, information on a sculptor who died who created the “Lone Sailor”. He also includes other topics in his posts such as baseball and and since he is also a volunteer in the Interpretation Division at Ellis Island National Monument, he does include some information about this place. What do you think about a blog that is structured in this way? If he titles the site Sesquicentennial site, is it okay that he includes posts about subjects that do not relate to the Civil War? -avanness

One of the sites I looked at was the President Lincoln's Cottage blog. This was a pretty simple, informative site about Lincoln's cottage and other topics that pertain to the president. I liked how the site contained news, updates, information about the cottage and the soldiers’ home. It also included information about visiting the cottage. I noticed that a few of the posts actually contained footnotes with the posts being written by various employees who work at the cottage. It seemed to be a very formal and accurate site. Do you think the general public would be more interested in a site like this, one that is more informative and accurate or in a blog such as the one from "Strawfoot"; one from an average person who is maybe just a Civil War buff? What can you possibly take away from either? -avanness

I like The Strawfoot Blog (http://thestrawfoot.wordpress.com/). It was interesting to read a northern perspective on the Civil War and how New York state is preparing for the sesquicentennial.  In a lot of his posts, he mainly talks about his travels to various Civil War sites and his experiences.  He doesn't seem to any apparent slant or take on the meaning of the war, which I thought was interesting.  How much emphasis and credibility should be placed on Blogs such as this one, a guy who has no real professional Civil War training?   What can be learned from blogs like this?  -ABratchie

Reading through the blog Crossroads (http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/) I found a lot of Professor Simpson's (ASU) posts interesting. In one of his more recent posts about the sesquicentennial, he remarks "I view the sesquicentennial as one large educational opportunity."  Would you agree that the sesquicentennial is an educational opportunity or is it simply just another 'event'?  Do you think that by focusing on education rather than entertainment (and possibly even commemoration) for the sesquicentennial people will less inclined to particpate? -ABratchie

One of the blogs I looked at, "Civil Warriors," (http://civilwarriors.net/wordpress/) contained a lot of random but interesting posts.  The blog writers Mark Grimsley and Ethan Rafuse are currently writing books on the civil war and are using this site to interact with their potential readers and exchange information.  Most of the posts have to do with current events that deal with Civil War memory, such as how Thomas P. Lowry is currently being accused of altering a Lincoln document.- aaskins

I also looked at "My Old Confederate Home" (http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/), a blog kept by Rusty Williams who wrote the book ''My Old Confederate Home: a respectable place for Civil War veterans''.  He posts information on the sources he used to write this book, and includes a lot of interesting anecdotes about some of the vets.  My favorite story was about a vet who on his 100th birthday bought an oldsmobile and hired someone to teach him to drive.  This blog is quite interesting because it focuses on the vets' everyday lives after the war, and more importantly, how they adjusted to living in veteran homes.- aaskin

One of the blogs I looked at was Victoria Bynum's blog, "Renegade South" (http://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/), which goes into great detail about personal stories of various Southerners involved in the war. It is interesting to see such a level of detail for so many unknown stories. It adds depth to a lot of the stuff we've been talking about. As an added plus, ahe is currently mired in controversy with John Stauffer and Sally Jenkins, and dedicates some of her posts to insulting them or responding to their put downs, which can be found by searching for either of their names. -GStan.

I read Rantings of a Civil War Historian (http://civilwarcavalry.com/) and the whole time while I was reading it, I couldn't stop thinking about our conversation about the difference between academic historians and more "popular" history writers. The guy who writes this blog, Eric Wittenburg, is an attorney from Ohio who really likes to focus on Union tactics and Gettysburg. He also kind of bashes the Lost Causers for fear that they will cause people to forget the real reason behind the war: slavery. I really want to pick up one of his books and read it just to see how he writes eg, academically or for the general public. - Angie

I also looked at the Civil War Bookshelf blog (http://cwbn.blogspot.com/) which was kind of confusing. It claims to be about historiography but I really didn't find much of that. He kind of just rants on about the same Civil War topic for long periods of time. There was one interesting post, though, where he talks about the difference between "stigmatizers" and "honorers." He basically says there are two types of people: those that want to honor the legacy of the Confederacy (honorers) and those that think its completely ignorant to do so because of slavery (stigmatizers). It was just interesting to see someone actually categorize people like that. - Angie

The first blog I looked at was " Fredericksburg Remembered The Challenges and adventures of interpreting the history of Fredericksburg, Stafford and Spotslyvania. Overall it is a very good blog focusing on the area and discusses many different Civil War topics that range from Secession, Slavery, John Washington etc. While looking at the various blogs on this website the section I found the most interesting was the section on John Washington. While reading John Washington and the emergence of a voice for Fredericksburg slave I found that statistic provided by David Blight, that out of 9 million slaves only 200 left behind memoirs. What role does a lack of slave memoirs play in determining the remembrance of slaves during the Civil War? -Nick

The first Blog I looked at was underneath the Cosmic America section, which I was wondering what the heck it even was, entitled "Straight From the Department of Bad Ideas…", and it holds up to its title. It discusses a elementary school teacher who decided it would be a great idea to celebrate the sesquicentennial by dividing her class up in black and white sections and holding a mock slave auction. Mind you this is an elementary school class, not a college or even high school level class, and this was done by a teacher in Norfolk. I found the story very interesting, and the teacher retarded, partially because I never heard about it. The comments on the blog tend to hold my sentiments. - AJ

The blog-site entitled "Draw the Sword" is a site devoted to the monuments of the Gettysburg battlefield. It has a page devoted to answering FAQ's on monuments, a page to provide an introductions to monuments in general, and, of course, many pages of pictures of almost each individual monument at gettysburg. You can search the monuments by brigades/armies, corps, commanding officers, and Monument type. I'm not going to lie, the name of the Blog was far more interesting to me than the actual site was, however the project that is being undergone by this site is good for digital history, like what we were talking about on tuesday. - AJ