EVENTS

Our Civil Conversation featuring Dr. Justene Hill Edwards is a must-see! Dr. Edwards and Jeffrey Nichols explore the rise and fall of the Freedman's Bank and how it shaped economic inequality in America. Join us on November 20, 2024 at 7:00 pm. Follow the link to register- It's Free! A Civil Conversation with Dr. Justene Hill Edwards About the book: In the years immediately after the Civil War, tens of thousands of former slaves deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank. African Americans envisioned this new bank as a launching pad for economic growth and self-determination. But only nine years after it opened, their trust was betrayed and the Freedman’s Bank collapsed. Fully informed by new archival findings, historian Justene Hill Edwards unearths a major turning point in American history in this comprehensive account of the Freedman’s Bank and its depositors. She illuminates the hope with which the bank was first envisioned and demonstrates the significant setback that the sabotage of the bank caused in the fight for economic autonomy. Hill Edwards argues for a new interpretation of its tragic failure: the bank’s white financiers drove the bank into the ground, not Fredrick Douglass, its final president, or its Black depositors […]

Join us for the Lessons in History Speaker Series on December 7, 2024, 1:00 - 2:00 pm, as Andrew Sillen presents the Blockbuster book Kidnapped at Sea. About the book: KIDNAPPED AT SEA: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White: On the anniversary of his kidnapping, the recovered story of David Henry White – a free Black teenager who was enslaved on a Confederate warship for over 600 days before dying in the 1864 Battle of Cherbourg and whose life has been misrepresented and unjustly appropriated for 150 years. For over 150 years, historians have recycled the fable that David Henry White – a free Black teenage sailor from Delaware who was kidnapped by the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862 – remained on the ship for 600 days of his own volition, working for reduced wages and embracing the master-servant relationship under the controversial and racist figure of Captain Raphael Semmes. This version of White’s life, primarily based on Semmes’s self-serving post-war Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States, strips White of his humanity and advances a false Lost Cause narrative. It is also absolutely false, according to a new blockbuster histo ry: Kidnapped […]

Civil War Dance Classes - Free Sunday ~ January 12, February 23, March 23, 2025, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Get ready for the Civil War Preservation Ball, in March 2023. This is great family fun!  Attend one or all of the classes and learn the popular formation dances of the 1860s. Partners are encouraged but not required to wear modern, comfortable, clothing since this is a physical workout. Register here: contact@civilwardance.org Please include the dates you plan to attend and the names of the attendees. Enrollees will be sent a Civil War Dance Manual. Conducted by the Victorian Dance Ensemble, the performing troupe of the Civil War Dance Foundation: * 2011 Civil War Trust’s Reenactment Unit of the Year * 2016 President’s Volunteer Service Gold Award Regular museum admission applies for entrance to the museum galleries. Images courtesy of VDE and the Barefoot Historian

An In-person Event! The National Civil War Museum welcomes Dr. Bennett Parten for a free Civil War book talk, Monday, January 27, 2025, 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm. A groundbreaking account of Sherman’s March to the Sea—the critical Civil War campaign that destroyed the Confederacy—told for the first time from the perspective of the tens of thousands of enslaved people who fled to the Union lines and transformed Sherman’s march into the biggest liberation event in American history. In the fall of 1864, Gen. William T. Sherman led his army through Atlanta, Georgia, burning buildings of military significance—and ultimately most of the city—along the way. From Atlanta, they marched across the state to the most important city at the time: Savannah. Mired in the deep of the South with no reliable supply lines, Sherman’s army had to live off the land and the provisions on the plantations they seized along the way. As the army marched to the east, plantation owners fled, but even before they did so, slaves self-emancipated to Union lines. By the time the army seized Savannah in December, as many as 20,000 enslaved people had attached themselves to Sherman’s army. They endured hardships, marching as much […]

Monday, February 17, 2025, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm. In honor of Presidents Day and Black History Month, the National Civil War Museum is proud to offer special pricing ~ Admission is $10.00 for Adults, and children under 18 are Free. Join us for a historic holiday, honoring the presidents of the United States. We welcome Christopher Croft, NCWM Volunteer, who will portray a USCT soldier and discuss the USCT enlistment process and what they had to endure throughout their enlistments and accomplishments made, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. Look for him next to Ephraim Slaughter! Thank you for your interest in The National Civil War Museum.  

Freedom Soldiers: The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons by Dr. Jonathan Lande. Join here via ZOOM: A Civil Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Lande on his book Freedom Soldiers Almost 200,000 African Americans fought to save the Union, many believing that military service was the pathway to freedom. Yet, even after enlisting, their journeys for liberation continued amid the bloody civil war. They marched across taxing terrain, performed backbreaking labor, and endured corporeal punishment meted out by white officers. They also agonized over families still enslaved and suffered virulent diseases. Many grew disillusioned, disgruntled, or homesick. They fought on bravely, yet thousands also ran. Chafing against restraints and violence reminiscent of slavery, they briefly liberated themselves from onerous army discipline. The men examined in Freedom Soldiers took self-granted breaks--"leaves of freedom"--and, once caught, were tried by the US Army for the military crime of "desertion." In the courts-martial, they justified their unauthorized departures by telling authorities that they left to temporarily help their families, regain their health, and evade violent officers. Army judges nevertheless convicted freedom seekers, sending most to military prisons. From prisons, the convicted deserters wrote petitions to President Abraham Lincoln and Union officials requesting […]

Civil War Dance Classes - Free Sunday ~ January 12, February 23, March 23, 2025, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Get ready for the Civil War Preservation Ball, in March 2023. This is great family fun!  Attend one or all of the classes and learn the popular formation dances of the 1860s. Partners are encouraged but not required to wear modern, comfortable, clothing since this is a physical workout. Register here: contact@civilwardance.org Please include the dates you plan to attend and the names of the attendees. Enrollees will be sent a Civil War Dance Manual. Conducted by the Victorian Dance Ensemble, the performing troupe of the Civil War Dance Foundation: * 2011 Civil War Trust’s Reenactment Unit of the Year * 2016 President’s Volunteer Service Gold Award Regular museum admission applies for entrance to the museum galleries.   Images courtesy of VDE and the Barefoot Historian

Camp Curtin Historical Society invites you to their meeting and presentation at The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA on Sunday, March 9, 2025, at 2:00 PM. How Did They Get Here? The Gettysburg Campaign by Dan Welch Follow the Union and Confederate armies northward across Virginia, Maryland, and into Pennsylvania during the weeks leading up to the battle of Gettysburg and examine the many battles and events that impacted both before the first shot on July 1, 1863. About the speaker: Dan Welch is a park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. Dan is the co-author of two works in the Emerging Civil War Series: The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863 and Never Such A Campaign: The Battle of Second Manassas, August 28-30, 1862, as well as Ohio at Antietam: The Buckeye State’s Sacrifice on America’s Bloodiest Day with the History Press. Several books by Dan will be available in the book store including The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign. In addition to the program, there will be a used book sale, and 10% of the proceeds will be given to the Museum. Admission to the presentation is free, […]

Civil War Dance Classes - Free Sunday ~ January 12, February 23, March 23, 2025, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Get ready for the Civil War Preservation Ball, in March 2023. This is great family fun!  Attend one or all of the classes and learn the popular formation dances of the 1860s. Partners are encouraged but not required to wear modern, comfortable, clothing since this is a physical workout. Register here: contact@civilwardance.org Please include the dates you plan to attend and the names of the attendees. Enrollees will be sent a Civil War Dance Manual. Conducted by the Victorian Dance Ensemble, the performing troupe of the Civil War Dance Foundation: * 2011 Civil War Trust’s Reenactment Unit of the Year * 2016 President’s Volunteer Service Gold Award Regular museum admission applies for entrance to the museum galleries.   Images courtesy of VDE and the Barefoot Historian

Join us for a free, in-person book talk, Last Seen, with Dr. Judith Giesberg on April 26, 2025, from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm, followed by a book signing. About the book: Drawing from an archive of nearly five thousand letters and advertisements, the riveting, dramatic story of formerly enslaved people who spent years searching for family members stolen away during slavery. Of all the many horrors of slavery, the cruelest was the separation of families in slave auctions. Spouses and siblings were sold away from one other. Young children were separated from their mothers. Fathers were sent down river and never saw their families again. As soon as slavery ended in 1865, family members began to search for one another, in some cases persisting until as late as the 1920s. They took out “information wanted” advertisements in newspapers and sent letters to the editor. Pastors in churches across the country read these advertisements from the pulpit, expanding the search to those who had never learned to read or who did not have access to newspapers. These documents demonstrate that even as most white Americans—and even some younger Black Americans, too—wanted to put slavery in the past, many former slaves, […]