Participating at Town of Webb School’s Civil War Day for the eighth grade students on Friday, May15 was a commemorative experience for me. I reminisced upon my own eighth grade self when I first was introduced to such a fascinating, yet devastating era in our country’s history.
At my school, Owen J. Roberts in Pottstown, PA, eighth grade was the year in which the students spent the majority of the year learning about the Civil War.
Our history class dedicated two-thirds of the year talking about the causes leading up to the war, the various battles of the war, and the aftermath and reconstruction.
It was the first time I had to write a large research paper on a subject of my choice, relating to the Civil War.
I remember I had just finished reading Gone With the Wind, a book I had been waiting for my mother to let me read since I was little.
I realize now how significant Margaret Mitchell’s story is to the memory of the Civil War, specifically it’s “Lost Cause” influences, but like many young girls, the big dresses, the romantic plantation life, and Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler enchanted me.
My mother one day brought down from our attic her collectible Madame Alexander doll, Melanie Wilkes, who I was allowed to carefully play with.
For Christmas that year my mother surprised me with my own Madame Alexander Scarlett O’Hara doll.
My mother said that while she loved Melanie for her dear personality and unconditional love for everyone around her, I more resembled Scarlett for her spunkiness and outspoken nature.
Knowing Scarlett’s character now, I should have taken that as an insult, but there is a particular charm to Scarlett that I can relate to.
Some part of me still wishes I had been born in the South as a Southern belle, but alas, I am just a normal Northern girl.
One of the best bonding memories I have with my mother was when we made Scarlett’s green curtain dress for my doll.
I am still proud of that dress, but today I have my own Civil War dress to be proud of.
While we were sewing Scarlett’s dress my mother and I joked about making a real life Civil War dress, never realizing in a couple more years we would.
My love for the Civil War and reenacting now stems from the early years of my life and my childhood love affair with Gone With the Wind.
I was so excited to choose Gone With the Wind as my research project, and pulled it apart by comparing it directly to the historical context in which it was written to portray southern lifestyles, slaves, Southern boys running off to war, the dreadful impact on the Southern landscape and home-front, the destruction of the Confederacy, and the introduction of carpetbaggers during Reconstruction.
At the end of the year every eighth grader presented his and her research to the whole eighth grade.
My eighth grade English class read The Killer Angels and I still remember absolutely loving that book while my friends struggled to get through the military writing with a general lack of interest in the war.
Michael Shaara’s book, for those who have not read it, is about the Battle of Gettysburg told from the perspective of important officers during the battle such as Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Union General George Meade, General James Longstreet, and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
The book has made a huge impact on young adults and adults immediately sparking their interest in the Civil War. After we eighth graders finished reading The Killer Angels the whole eighth grade spent a couple days watching the movie Gettysburg, based on the book.
To this day it is one of my favorite movies. The most exciting part about the eighth grade Civil War experience was our field trip to Gettysburg.
Our school was fortunately only two hours away so we loaded the buses bright and early and spent the whole day in Gettysburg.
I remember at one point the bus drove by the campus of Gettysburg College and I turned to my friends and said I would go to that school one day. I was not wrong. Thanks to an incredible eighth grade history teacher, I never forgot what I learned that year. Instead, I continued reading about the Civil War until it was time to apply to college.
Gettysburg College had everything I wanted in a dream school: a wonderful history department with the only Civil War Era Studies department in the nation.
It also had the bonus Conservatory of Music where I could continue my music studies and eventually apply them to my interest in music of the Civil War.
I am a double major in History and Music with a double minor in Civil War Era Studies and Public History but I still had time to join Gettysburg College’s reenacting unit, the Pennsyl-vania College Guard, who reenact the boys from the College who joined the war immediately before the Battle of Gettysburg to defend the town from the approaching Confederate army.
It was during the summer between my freshmen and sophomore year that I sewed my own dress; the ten handmade buttonholes were the hardest part.
Last summer I was chosen as a Brian C. Pohanka Intern at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia where I was able to convey my passion for the Civil War to visitors by writing my own tours and giving guided walking tours of the battles of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania.
I also led the Children’s Program each weekend teaching the little ones about the war. After that summer I knew teaching people, big or small, about the Civil War was something I could do for the rest of my life.
During my junior year of college I discovered my interest in Civil War music, researching and writing for the Civil War Institute and various classes I was taking.
My interest influenced me to apply for a research grant to conduct my own research on Civil War music and morale this summer, which I will be applying to my senior capstones.
I hope to either apply my studies to teaching or working at a national park, historic site, or museum in the future.