Blog

My name is Morgan Amison, and I have just entered my third year at UVA as a History and Economics double major with a Studio Art minor. My summer, however, was spent at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, where I worked as a Cultural Resources Intern. My time was divided between all three sectors of the park, Curatorial, Historical, and Public Interpretation, from which I learned new managerial skills, developed my public history and communication abilities, and made a number of bonds with the dedicated individuals who staff our National Parks.

My name is Jaiden Mosley, and I am a 2nd year history MA student at the University of Virginia. This summer I had the opportunity to work as a Nau Center intern at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland. Antietam is one of America’s most historic battlefields. The battle of Antietam, on September 17, 1862, was the single bloodiest day in American history. Approximately 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or went missing in just 12 hours of fighting. The Battle of Antietam changed what the war was fought over.

My name is Solomon Galpern, and I am a third-year student at the University of Virginia double-majoring in Chemistry and History. This summer, I spent my time as a Nau Center intern at Manassas National Battlefield Park. Through this experience, I learned a ton, not only about the battles that took place at Manassas, but also about how to engage with the public about history. I also learned a lot about myself in the process. 

I’ve been a bit obsessed with Civil War names recently, as a previous post attests. With all the world entranced by Christopher Nolan’s latest film, an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, I began to wonder why Ulysses S. Grant possessed the Latin form of the hero’s name. After all, that choice gave us the perfect war hero appellation “U.S. Grant,” rather than “O.S. Grant,” which just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

At this very moment, great throngs of shad are swimming up rivers along the Atlantic seaboard to reach their spawning grounds. Or, as the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources phrased it in the email that recently hit my inbox: “It’s Spring: Sling String for Shad”! Indeed, the time is right to fish for American shad, along with hickory shad and other species of river herring. 

The Civil War era offers no shortage of memorable names, from States Rights Gist and Simon Bolivar Buckner to Don Carlos Buell and Salmon P. Chase. But what about the names given during the 1860s and 1870s? In my last blog post, I noted an unusual name given to a white Virginian boy who was born just after the Civil War ended. The parents seemed to honor Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, who had aided Union victory by scorching and subjugating the Shenandoah Valley in 1864.

            As thirteen-year-old Richard Slaughter climbed over the bulwark and onto the deck of the USS Maratanza, he surely felt that he was clambering toward freedom. The young Black Virginian had fled to liberty aboard the Union ship on the James River, and now he and his father, mother, and kin were steaming toward freedom with each turn of the Maratanza’s paddle wheels. Slaughter probably stood on the deck and gazed at what lay ahead of him.

John Brown has endured as a singular figure in the lore of abolitionism, as few could match his combination of zealous madness and physical courage. In the aftermath of Brown’s assault on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in October 1859, he paid for those convictions with his life, as did most of his raiders. But the following half-decade would raise many more opportunities for daring men and women, enslaved and free, to confront slavery — and for fearful planters to root out presumed traitors. One such alleged conspirator was a man named Enos Price.

            When people think about boy soldiers from Virginia during the Civil War, their minds are usually drawn to scenes of Virginia Military Institute cadets charging across the fields at New Market in 1864. Their story, however, has often overshadowed the stories of thousands of Virginians, both Black and white, Union and Confederate, who entered Civil War armies before they were eighteen years old (the age at which they were liable for military service).

My name is Jacob Phillips. I graduated from the University of Virginia last May and spent the summer working as a Nau Center intern at Manassas National Battlefield Park, the site of the first major land battle of the American Civil War. Manassas is the third National Park that I have worked at for the Nau Center. In previous years, I interned at Fredericksburg and Antietam. As with my previous internships, working at Manassas made for a wonderful summer.