Researching and writing the history of the American Civil War

W. Richardson

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Jun 29, 2011
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Mt. Gilead, North Carolina
A great video. Learned some nice information, and that history of the war isn't quite as we know, on either side.


https://www.c-span.org/video/?430771-2/researching-writing-civil-war-books



Respectfully,
William
Private   114th Pennsylvania Regiment 1865.JPG
 
I have been amazed at how inaccurate and superficial the "teaching" about the Civil War is. It's a disgrace. I've learned so many astonishing things in my research. Thanks for the link.
 
I have been amazed at how inaccurate and superficial the "teaching" about the Civil War is. It's a disgrace. I've learned so many astonishing things in my research. Thanks for the link.


I am the same way. It is amazing the difference from what is taught as "history" and what you find in your own researching that is the actual "history". It is the things they leave out, ignore, push to the side, or just plain cover-up, that writes the wrong "history"

I urge everyone I talk with about learning history, is to read all you can, the pro, the con, the good, the bad, and the ugly, research all you can.....................And then decide for yourself, instead of taking this spoon fed "history"

That is why, when I hear someone disregard a source, degrad a book and author, because it disagrees with their "history" I chuckle and roll my eyes, because then I know exactly what I am dealing with.


Respectfully,
William
Justice is Blind.JPG
 
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Thanks for putting up the video--I finally got to see and, most importantly, hear one of my very favorite Civil War historians, John Michael Priest!! His books have provided me hours upon hours of pleasure and appreciation of the Civil War soldier over many years--down to and including this very morning while I was rereading "Before Antietam" for the third time!
It is wonderful to hear these authors discuss how they arrive at an "idea" that they feel needs to be expanded and the difficulties sorting thru all the information and mistakes in that information.
This is valuable stuff.
I'm not as negative about how the Civil War is taught in public schools, unfortunately every high school cannot have a Priest in the faculty and, like most teachers on any subject, secondary educators have a lot of ground to cover in one hour a day, five days a week for a semester and if their knowledge and insight into this particular era is woeful then that is the nature of how most subjects from math to cursive writing probably has to be presented. The best we can hope is that these burdened teachers create a small spark in some students so that they can grow up to and into being the kind of Civil War nerds you and I are. That's enough for me because I know that time and the future waits for no nerd--we, most of us, have much to do besides doing a nose dive into CW history--we have to also know enough other basic "stuff" to survive and hopefully thrive on doing other tasks.
In any case, it was a pleasure to hear these fellows discuss the problems with research and errors on a subject I love--makes me want to flip back to the endnotes more often and "ibid" my way back to the original source. So now I can spend even more time enjoying my particular perversion!!!!!! Oh my, more tests to my eyesight and patience--just the sort of trial I needed in my dotage.
 
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