;
What’s Ahead for the Civil War Blog in 2014
Posted By Norman Gasbarro on January 1, 2014
The Civil War Research Project and the blog are now embarking on the last full calendar year of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. The biggest change evident in the past year is the departure from a project involving a single historical society in the Lykens Valley area to a project involving multiple historical societies, researchers, veterans’ groups and schools and working cooperatively with those entities to achieve their individual goals as they relate to research on and about the Civil War.
A cooperative venture with the Historical Society of Williamstown and Williams Township will include their hosting of the project’s exhibit, Women and the Civil War from May through July; the unveiling and dedication of a military commission of Daniel Chester (after whom the Williamstown G.A.R. Post was named); the creation of a list of veterans who served in the Civil War who had some relationship with Williamstown or Williams Township followed by extensive research on each; and cooperation with the Williamtown American Legion and its plans to dedicate a memorial to area Prisoners of War.
A cooperative venture with the Historical Society of Millersburg and Upper Paxton Township will include the 100th Anniversary of the Millersburg Soldiers’ Monument that will take place in May; further research on the veterans identified on that monument; and identification of and research on additional veterans with a Millersburg or Upper Paxton connection; a “catalog” of Civil War-related burials at Oak Hill Cemetery; and a possible historical society program with stories and pictures of some of the veterans from the area.
An ongoing project not affiliated with any current group is the research being done on the Civil War veterans buried at the Shomokin Cemetery, Soldiers’ Circle (Shamokin, Northumberland County). Nearly all the veterans buried there have now been identified and many have a Lykens Valley area connection. Plans are to include blog posts on all the veterans who are buried at the Soldiers’ Circle. Special thanks to Sam Kerstetter for working with me on this project!
In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War events in Georgia – including the Battle of Atlanta and Sherman’s March to the Sea – a series of blog posts will be presented, and featuring whenever possible the Lykens Valley and broader Pennsylvania connections to those events.
Behind the scenes, data continue to be collected on the now more than 3000 Civil War veterans with some local area connection. Initially, it was thought that the Veterans’ List could be updated annually in April, but that effort would have diverted resources from the research and writing goals of the project. It now appears that the next update will occur at the end of the Sesquicentennial in or around April 2015. Currently, all of the research information is available at no charge to historical societies and researchers affiliated with historical societies, schools and veterans’ groups. The information includes items of the type listed in the project description found on the blog. The project will continue to accept information from readers and researchers and catalog that information for use by others and/or for posting on the blog. Items can be sent via e-mail or mailed to Norm Gasbarro, Civil War Research Project, P.O. Box 523, Gratz, PA 17030.
Posts on the blog will feature all of the above including continuation of current cultural series such as those written by Brian Tomlin and new and interesting research by Jake Wynn.
With special thanks to all blog readers who have helped make 2013 a banner year (now nearly 300,000 visits to the blog), as well as to the blog’s regular contributors Brian Tomlin and Jake Wynn, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!
Comments