What most started your lifelong interest in the American Civil War?

privateflemming

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I saw a discussion about whether the Civil War needs to be taught more in school for younger people to be interested in it so I decided to make this poll. I know a lot of these factors probably play a role for most people but choose the one that you think is the earliest/most fundamental reason for your interest.

Feel free to elaborate more in the comments.
 
A combination of my Dad, who was an excellent history (former) teacher...(at least on this subject...and some others...he had his topics). And a soldiers' civil war diary that had come down through the family....He wasn't a relative, but there was a connection to our family, which is how we ended up with it. At about 15 years old, I began to research and investigate the diary when I first saw /read it.

My initial purpose was to find out: 'Is this thing for real?'....just trying to establish either way if it was authentic (it is)....and the rest is 'History'.....(yeah, I know....Boo!!)
 
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After the Ken Burns series and 2-3 books,my interest was dormant until a 2014 visit to the Monitor Conservation Project at the Mariners Museum in Newport News.
 
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I saw a discussion about whether the Civil War needs to be taught more in school for younger people to be interested in it so I decided to make this poll. I know a lot of these factors probably play a role for most people but choose the one that you think is the earliest/most fundamental reason for your interest.

Feel free to elaborate more in the comments.

When I was 6, my Dad came home from a business trip that included Gettysburg. He gave me a bullet he bought there, and I was hooked. I stil have the bullet, almost 60 years later!
 
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I was in Elementary school, and a mandatory visit to the Library. I checked out a book about the CSS Arkansas. I was hooked on Civil War History. While stationed in Virginia, I attended a Civil War reenactment, And I had to tour all the battlefields.
 
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Mom wanted to spark an interest in American history in me when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and she checked out a book from the library on the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia... the book was Duel Between the First Ironclads, by William C. Davis-- which I still consider the classic work on the topic. It made quite an impression. A couple of years later, I found a copy at a garage sale (Amazon being decades in the future), and it still graces my bookshelf... the first of my collection (with my name and 6th grade homeroom number still written inside the cover). And I was off and running.
 
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Our mascot in high school was the Rebels, including the Confederate flag. As a senior in 1971, I wrote an essay about the symbolism of the Confederate flag.
While homeschooling in 1980, we read, ACROSS FIVE APRILS as a family. Our kids asked a lot of questions so we did a unit study about the War Between the States.
More recently, I've studied family history through Ancestry.com While most of my family were Unionist, some were Confederates who did not endorse slavery.
 
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My first Civil War book. I remembered the Confederate being a little more cheerful than the Yank, and that he was holding his carbine and had a turned up brim to his hat.

My parents took the family to Gettysburg when I was little. 4th grade? I remember a first person impression by a ranger of a barefoot reb.
That might have been my first book to. Had a book sale in my grade school library, and you could order books. I couldn't wait to get this one. But I was already hooked before I entered school, don't think I ever missed a Gray Ghost Show, thats what really got me started. Dad taking me to the 1961 First Manassas really put fuel on the fire.
 
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I first read Gone With the Wind when I was 14 in 1965. Edited. I told my mother a movie should be made of that book. A couple of years later, the movie was released and she took me to see it. I also sew and love Civil War costumes. Making a bonnet by hand came many years later. Fast forward to recent years and my exploration of ancestry online. Three of my great grandfathers fought in the Civil War as confederates, from Texas and Oklahoma. My mother's grandfather was a sharpshooter for Texas. Interesting because all three of my children are excellent shots. Two sons and one daughter and we all live in Texas. Finding that my roots are really in the South has furthered my interest in the Civil War.
 
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My father was a Marine in the South Pacific during WWII. Many of his friends were from that period (he was in VMF-115) so my first interest was WWII, particularly aviation.

My mothers sister met her husband while they sang in the Robert Shaw Choral. He was an avid historian and loved the history of the American Civil War. In fact, they toured Civil War battlefields for their honeymoon and he was a History professor teaching at a college after his singing career. He is the one who took me on as a project to kindle my interest in the American Civil War.

As it happens my Aunt and I shared the same birthday and so starting with Christmas and birthday presents of toy Civil War soldiers followed by books on the American Civil War I became hooked. Since he was a professor of American History he was an excellent teacher for me. He would sit me down and talk to me about the toys or books that I had just received and would answer all of my questions. He really brought it alive for me.

We were living in California so it wasn't until my mother and I visited my sister for Christmas who was living Virginia that I saw my first battlefields. We toured many of them during that trip and I will never forget them or the many places of American history that awoke a life changing interest in me.

I also was fascinated with Colonial Williamsburg and architecture of the South that I was exposed to.
 
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I saw a discussion about whether the Civil War needs to be taught more in school for younger people to be interested in it so I decided to make this poll. I know a lot of these factors probably play a role for most people but choose the one that you think is the earliest/most fundamental reason for your interest.

Feel free to elaborate more in the comments.
I absolutley feel it should be taught more to clear up the ignorance we have these days because people just beleive whatever their told and if someone says this is bad of course they believe it and that's why our monuments are being destroyed because of ignorance .
 
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In 1959, with the Centennial approaching, my Dad bought me a couple of Civil War books so that I would understand what the celebration was all about. A couple of years later, it was a family trip to Vicksburg, and that summer a driving trip from Texas to Gettysburg --- hooked, reeled and landed, all before high school.
 
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These maps with all the little men(so evocative of a really big set of toy soldiers) fascinated me as a kid. This is the Battle of Franklin. From the American Heritage history of the war, featured in the American Heritage magazine as well, which we subscribed to, hard cover magazines in the 60s, full of fascinating photographs and images.

Great question, poll, and so many great responses. Of course like most of us “all of the above” would be accurate for me, but since we are asked to narrow it down I point to David Greenspan’s maps as well. We spent many hours taking over the living room floor with Blue and Gray plastic men and Lincoln Logs. Dragging my parents to Gettysburg and Antietam and learning not to always be the first to raise his hand with the answer in history class came later...
 
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For me mostly the family history being told to me from an early age and having a father who was passionate about history (and books).
I must also add as others have said, the American Heritage history of the war book with the illustrated battle maps. These captured my young imagination and I would set up my toy soldiers to match what was depicted in these maps.
 
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I am a tremendous Gone With the Wind fan. Anyone who has read that book has to get immersed in the CW. As I grew in my knowledge about the war, the events that occurred hooked me more. I am an Arkansan. I didn't understand my state's attitudes and roles in the war until I began to research for a novel. Arkansas really didn't want to "fight" against our country in the beginning. Our legislature discussed dividing our state into two separate states because our Delta region(Planter society) didn't see how they could live with the culture from the parts of the state that did not hold with slavery. I never knew about that. Had President Lincoln not sent a letter to the governor of our state requesting recruits, we may have voted to remain in the union, as our first secession convention had decided to hold a general election to let the people decide which side to support. Who ever knew?
 
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