Class dismissed

View from the Confederate side of the battlefield,
looking south. Little Round Top is visable to the
right of the white-roofed barn in the center top.

            The 2011 Civil War Institute is over and it was a tremendous experience for a newcomer. The opportunity to meet about 330 like-minded students of the era and listen to a group of recognized experts in the field was an exciting prospect and the reality lived up to expectations.

            The Institute is conducted each year at Gettysburg College. That’s right, Gettysburg College. The one in Pennsylvania.

            The subject frame for this year’s CWI was the run up to the war and the first battles of the conflict. The speakers challenged us to think. We did and, in some cases, the audience challenged the speakers during the question and answer sessions that followed each presentation. (See note below)

Memorial to Confederate general James
Longstreet along Confederate Ave.

            There were some changes to the CWI for this year. The new director, Dr. Peter Carmichael, added a morning of breakout sessions on the final day. These sessions were conducted in classrooms and gave us a chance to hear presentations in small group settings from a wide-ranging group of speakers. Carmichael, who battled a cold all week, was among the breakout presenters. These sessions were spread among various aspects of the battle of Gettysburg and the afternoon was devoted to specially crafted tours of specific areas of that battlefield.

            What could be more interesting?

            Wayne Motts, a battlefield guide and executive director of the Adams County Historical Society, led a group on a tour following the actions of the United States Sharpshooters on the second day of the Gettysburg fight, July 2, 1863. This tour centered on the south end of the battlefield and, while leading his group down a path near the Bushman farm, Motts gave a plausible reason for supposing where Confederate commander John Bell Hood was wounded.

The Bushman farm from the south and east. This area
is believed to be near where Confederate general
John Bell Hood was wounded at Gettysburg.

            Motts read from three-by-five index cards prepared for his battlefield tours. He read excerpts from letters to Hood after the war and from a report by Hood prepared well after the battle. Motts read two descriptions of the topography where Hood was wounded and then Motts explained how the letters described the location where Motts and his tour group then stood.

            What devotee of the battle of Gettysburg would want to miss that?

            It was a tremendous week for an amateur historian/photographer.

            Thanks for reading.

Wildflowers in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg. These
might be black-eyed susans.

            NOTE: This year’s CWI presenters included Chuck Teague (president of Historic Gettysburg Adams County and a Gettysburg park ranger), Peter Carmichael (director of the Institute and a professor at the college), Jason Phillips (author and associate professor at Mississippi State), Allen Guelzo (author and director of Civil War Studies at the College), Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh (author who instructs at Yale), Tim Orr (professor at Old Dominion), Mary De Credico (author and professor at the Naval Academy), Susannah Ural (author, associate professor at Southern Mississippi and senior fellow at the Southern Mississippi Center for the Study of War and Society), A. Wilson Greene (author and executive director of Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier), Ethan Rafuse (author and professor at the US Army Command General Staff College), Joseph Glatthaar (author and professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Gary Gallagher (you already know this guy: Author and speaker frequently quoted on various television shows about the War and professor of history at the University of Virginia).