EVENTS

  The National Civil War Museum is proud to announce the rescheduled Community Free Day on April 20, 2024, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. The National Civil War Museum welcomes visitors to enjoy a day of fun activities and entertainment free of charge. Families can participate in a coloring activity grab-and-go station, Music with the Long Hill String Band, the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and much more. Guests can also watch a very special one-act play, "Independence: The True Story of Dr. Mary Walker," scheduled at 1:00 pm in the Museum Ballroom, with Kathie Barnes as Dr. Mary Walker, written and directed by Lloyd J. Schwartz, and produced by Tina Dwyer. Jeffrey L. Nichols, CEO of The National Civil War Museum. “We invite everyone to join us for a day of learning, entertainment, and fun activities.” The National Civil War Museum is a premier destination for history enthusiasts, scholars, and families. It is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the legacy of the American Civil War and its impact on American society.   The Community Free Day is proudly sponsored by Abel & Son Roofing and Visit Hershey Harrisburg.

  The National Civil War Museum Proudly Presents INDEPENDENCE: The True Story of Dr. Mary Walker, with Kathie Barnes as Dr. Mary Walker, written and directed by Lloyd J. Schwartz, and produced by Tina Dwyer on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at 1:00 pm, and is Free to the public. This one-act play is followed by a Q&A with the actress. About the play: A women's history play about Dr. Mary Walker - Civil War Surgeon, Heroine, and Positive Role Model. This theatre piece brings to the forefront the life of Doctor Mary Edwards Walker, the Only Woman to have been awarded our country's highest honor, The Congressional Medal of Honor. Living in an era when women had few rights, Dr. Walker didn't take 'No' for an answer, becoming one of the first women to wear pants, to take 'obey' out of her marriage vows and the first woman surgeon in the US. A trailblazer for Women's Rights, Dr. Mary Walker was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls. Several hospitals bear her name, yet most people do not know of her. Dr. Mary Walker is truly a heroine who needs to be known - and through the powerful art of theatre, this is […]

Join us on Thursday, May 2, 2024, at 7:00 pm for a CIVIL CONVERSATION. This is a live ZOOM event ~ Dr. Robert K. D. Colby, author of An Unholy Traffic will engage in a Civil Conversation with NCWM CEO Jeffrey Nichols. Register here: Civil Conversation with Dr. Robert Colby About the book: The Confederate States of America was born in defense of slavery and, after a four-year struggle to become an independent slaveholding republic, died as emancipation dawned. Between Fort Sumter to Appomattox, Confederates bought and sold thousands African American men, women, and children. These transactions in humanity made the internal slave trade a cornerstone of Confederate society, a bulwark of the Rebel economy, and a central part of the experience of the Civil War for all inhabiting the American South. As An Unholy Traffic shows, slave trading helped Southerners survive and fight the Civil War, as well as to build the future for which they fought. They mitigated the crises the war spawned by buying and selling enslaved people, using this commerce to navigate food shortages, unsettled gender roles, the demands of military service, and other hardships on the home front. Some Rebels speculated wildly in human property, […]

Join us for our in-person event: Lessons in History, Saturday, May 11, 2024, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm ~ John Reeves, A Fire in the Wilderness: The First Battle Between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee Author John  Reeves tells the story of the first bloody showdown between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in May 1864; when the future of the United States depended on the Union Army’s success in a desolate forest roughly sixty-five miles from the nation’s capital. Guests can tour the Museum Galleries for an entrance fee of $16.00 for Adults, $15.00 for Seniors and AAA, and $14.00 for Students and Military. Admission to the presentation is free.   About the Author; John Reeves is the author of The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee and A Fire in the Wilderness: The First Battle Between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. He has been a teacher, editor, and writer for over twenty-five years. The Civil War, in particular, has been his passion since he first read Bruce Catton’s The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War as an elementary school student in the 1960s. John’s articles on Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. […]

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore presents An Evening with Harold Holzer, with NCWM CEO, Jeffrey Nichols, welcoming bestselling historian Harold Holzer to Harrisburg for a conversation and signing on his new novel, Brought Forth on This Continent": Abraham Lincoln and America Immigration. This event is free and open to the public. To enter the signing line, books must be purchased from the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event, or you may preorder a copy of the book for pickup/shipment. Preordered copies will not be signed until after the event. PREORDER A SIGNED COPY About the Book: From acclaimed Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, a groundbreaking account of Lincoln’s grappling with the politics of immigration against the backdrop of the Civil War. In the three decades before the Civil War, some ten million foreign-born people settled in the United States, forever altering the nation’s demographics, culture, and—perhaps most significantly—voting patterns. America’s newest residents fueled the national economy, but they also wrought enormous changes in the political landscape and exposed an ugly, at times violent, vein of nativist bigotry. Abraham Lincoln’s rise ran parallel to this turmoil; even Lincoln himself did not always rise […]

Join us for our In-Person Lessons in History Speaker Series as Dr. Bradley M. Gottfried discusses his new book, The Maps of Spotsylvania through Cold Harbor: An Atlas of the Fighting at Spotsylvania Court House Through Cold Harbor, Including all Cavalry Operations, May 7 through June 3, 1864, on Saturday, June 15, 2024, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm. About the book: The Maps of Spotsylvania through Cold Harbor: An Atlas of the Fighting at Spotsylvania Court House Through Cold Harbor, Including all Cavalry Operations, May 7 through June 3, 1864, continues the actions of both armies through the completion of the Overland Campaign. After the Wilderness fighting, the Army of the Potomac attempted to swing around the right flank of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and shoot straight for Richmond. The Maps of Spotsylvania through Cold Harbor breaks down the entire operation into thirty-five map sets or “action sections” enriched with 134 detailed full-page color maps. About the author: Born and raised in Philadelphia, Brad Gottfried earned his Ph.D. in Zoology from Miami University and spent four decades as an educator in higher education. He has served as a full-time faculty member, department head, campus dean, chief […]

The National Civil War Museum proudly presents the NCWM Juneteenth Community Free Day on Saturday, June 22, 2024, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. Join us for a day filled with family-friendly activities, all free of charge. 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm - Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church Praise Team Choir - Ballroom 10:00 am – 4:00 pm African American Quilters Demonstration Thompson’s Independent Battery C, PA Light Artillery, will demonstrate a Mountain Howitzer with firing times at 10:00 am, 11:30 am, and 2:30 pm. Please check back often for new activities and the full event schedule. We look forward to seeing you!

Civil Conversation via ZOOM - Free On Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at 7:00 pm, we invite you to join us via Zoom for an enriching Civil Conversation. This event will showcase the insightful perspectives of Duncan A. Campbell and Neils Eichhorn, alongside NCWM CEO Jeffrey Nichols, promising a thought-provoking discussion. Mark your calendars now! Register here: A Civil Conversation on The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism with Niels Eichhorn & Duncan Campbell About the book: While historians have acknowledged that the issues of race, slavery, and emancipation were not unique to the American Civil War, they have less frequently recognized the conflict’s similarities to other global events. As renowned historian Carl Degler pointed out, the Civil War was “one among many” such conflicts during the mid-nineteenth century. Understanding the Civil War’s place in world history requires placing it within a global context of other mid-nineteenth-century political, social, and cultural issues and events. In The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism, Niels Eichhorn and Duncan A. Campbell explore the conflict from this perspective, taking a transnational and comparative approach, with a particular focus on the period from the 1830s to the 1870s. Eichhorn and Campbell examine the development of […]

Join us for a book launch on Wednesday, July 3, 2024 at 1:00 pm, with Allen C. Guelzo and his new book Voices from Gettysburg, Letters, Papers, and Memoirs from the Greatest Battle of the Civil War. About the book: The voices of those who witnessed the Battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath with their own eyes – who saw the bloodshed, heard its din, trembled in its crash, struggled with its aftermath – are collected for the first time by Allen C. Guelzo, America’s foremost Civil War scholar, in this moving and sobering oral history. This treasure trove of original documents – many never-before published – creates a uniquely personal, day-by-day eyewitness account of the monumental collision at Gettysburg, in the words of the commanders, soldiers, politicians, and civilians from both the North and the South who experienced firsthand the changing course of the Civil War. Three pivotal days in 1963 – July 1st through July 3rd – marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War. While the audible voices of those who experienced it first-hand in that crossroads town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania have been lost to history, their words live on in Voices from Gettysburg. Gathering a […]

The Unvanquished The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations Join Us for This Free Zoom Civil War Book Talk ~ Register here: A Civil War Book Talk with Patrick K. O'Donnell by Patrick K. O’Donnell From the bestselling author of The Indispensables, the unknown and dramatic story of irregular guerrilla warfare that altered the course of the Civil War and inspired the origins of America’s modern special operations forces The Civil War is most remembered for the grand battles that have come to define it: Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, among others. However, as bestselling author Patrick K. O’Donnell reveals in The Unvanquished, a vital shadow war raged amid and away from the major battlefields that was in many ways equally consequential to the conflict’s outcome. At the heart of this groundbreaking narrative is the epic story of Lincoln’s special forces, the Jessie Scouts, told in its entirety for the first time. In a contest fought between irregular units, the Scouts hunted John Singleton Mosby’s Confederate Rangers from the middle of 1863 up to war’s end at Appomattox. With both sides employing pioneering tradecraft, they engaged in dozens of raids and spy […]

Join us on Saturday, August 3, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm, as Dr. Scott Hippensteel presents Sand, Science, and the Civil War:  Sedimentary Geology and Combat. Admission to the Lessons in History Speaker Series is Free to the public. Guests can tour the Museum Galleries for an entrance fee of $16.00 for Adults, $15.00 for Seniors and AAA, and $14.00 for Students and Military. About the Book: The influence of sedimentary geology on the strategy, combat, and tactics of the American Civil War is a subject that has been neglected by military historians. Sedimentary geology influenced everything from the nature of the landscape (flat vs. rolling terrain) to the effectiveness of the weapons (a single grain of sand can render a rifle musket as useless as a club). Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat investigates the role of sedimentary geology on the campaigns and battles of the Civil War on multiple scales, with a special emphasis on the fighting along the coastlines. At the start of the Civil War the massive brick citadels guarding key coastal harbors and shipyards were thought to be invincible to artillery attack. The Union bombardment of Savannah’s key defensive fortification, Fort […]

On Thursday, September 12, 2024, 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm, our newest Civil Conversation explores "Decade of Disunion." This discussion between NCWM CEO, Jeffrey Nichols, and author Robert W. Merry is free via ZOOM. Join us here via ZOOM: Civil War Book Talk with Robert W. Merry About the Book: Exploring a critical lesson about our nation that is as timely today as ever, Decade of Disunion shows how the country came apart during the enveloping slavery crisis of the 1850s. The Mexican War brought vast new territories to the United States, which precipitated a growing crisis over slavery. The new territories seemed unsuitable for the type of agriculture that depended on slave labor, but they lay south of the line where slavery was permitted by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. The subject of expanding slavery to the new territories became a flash point between North and South. First came the 1850 compromise legislation, which strengthened the fugitive slave law and outraged the North. Then in 1854, Congress repealed the Missouri Compromise altogether, unleashing a violent conflict in “Bleeding Kansas” over whether that territory would become free or slave. The 1857 Dred Scott decision—abrogating any rights of African Americans, enslaved or free—further […]