Steven D. Sims begins as Superintendent of Gettysburg NMP and Eisenhower NHS – Kristina Heister as the acting Dpty Superintendent

Steven D. Sims, began his new duties on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 and as a first order of business will welcome Kristina Heister as the acting deputy superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site. She will serve in this position for 120 days beginning on February 2, 2020.

Heister currently serves as the Superintendent of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, a unit of the National Park Service that extends 73.4 miles along the Delaware River from Hancock NY to Port Jervis NY. 

Heister is familiar with both park units having recently served as the acting superintendent from mid-April to mid-August 2019. “I am very appreciative of the opportunity to serve as acting deputy superintendent for Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site. I feel truly honored to assist, even for a short time, with the protection of sites that are so important to the preservation of the United States, telling the American story, and that are loved and treasured by the American people” said Heister. “I look forward to working with the new Superintendent, my NPS colleagues, park visitors, partners and the local community.”

She began her National Park Service career as a biologist at Valley Forge National Historical Park (NHP) in Pennsylvania. Since then she has served in a variety of natural resource management positions in parks and regions throughout the country, including Appomattox Court House NHP. In her next NPS post, she spent six years with the inventory and monitoring program working collaboratively to design a long-term monitoring program for parks in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert. In 2006, she returned to Valley Forge NHP as the chief of natural resources where she led an interdisciplinary effort to develop a highly controversial White-tailed Deer Management Plan and created a complex network of partnerships that integrated work with local non-profit organizations, youth programs, volunteerism, teachers and students. Heister also served as the Chief of Natural Resources for the Northeast Region between 2012 and 2014, where she led a multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts to promote science-based management in parks and increased park involvement in decision-making.

Heister graduated in 1989 with a bachelor’s of science in biology from Salisbury State University and received her masters of science in wildlife and fisheries science in 1995 from The Pennsylvania State University.

"Lincoln" - a free movie at Sellersville Theater on Monday February 17th

Free Movie: Lincoln

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17

Show at 7:30pm // Doors open 7pm

Sellersville Theater
24 West Temple Avenue
Sellersville, PA 18960

215-257-5808

Join us for a free showing of the movie Lincoln on President’s Day. With the nation embroiled in still another year with the high death count of Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln brings the full measure of his passion, humanity and political skill to what would become his defining legacy: to end the war and permanently abolish slavery through the 13th Amendment. (2012)(PG-13) Directed By Steven Spielberg

Winter Ranger Programs at Gettysburg NMP (Lectures Series & Reading Series)

Winter Lecture Series: January 11 - March 22, 2020

(SEE BELOW FOR CHILDREN’S READING SERIES)
National Park Service rangers and leading historians from across the country offer free hour-long talks exploring important aspects of the American Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center.
Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30 pm.
These programs are free of charge.
Limited seating is available on a first come - first serve basis.
Subject is schedule to change.

Sat. January 11 – Ranger Matt Atkinson ~ Freemasonry at Gettysburg: Fraternal Bonds Tested by Battle

Sun. January 12 – Ranger Bert Barnett ~ Gettysburg – Recovery, Memorialization, Preservation, & Commercialization

Sat. January 18 – Historian Codie Eash ~ Pray for Oblivion to His Memory: Frederick Douglass on the Legacy of Robert E. Lee

Sun. January 19 – Prof. Kent Gramm ~ Gettysburg: The Living and the Dead

Sat. January 25 – Ranger Steve Phan ~ The Defenses of Washington during the Gettysburg Campaign

Sun. January 26 – Historian John Heiser ~ Neglected Heroes of Gettysburg: The Army Mule

Sat. February 1 – Artists Pat Bauer and Dave Geister ~ Tales from the Little Log House on the Emmitsburg Road

Sun. February 2 – Ranger Angela Atkinson ~ The Second Middle Passage: An Examination of the Antebellum Interstate Slave Trade

Sat. February 8 – Ranger Troy Harman ~ Is Gettysburg the High Water Mark?

Sun. February 9 – Ranger John Hoptak ~ "With Eagles on their Buttons and Bullets in their Pockets:" South-Central Pennsylvanians in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry

Sat. February 15 – Ranger Daniel Vermilya ~ "These Honored Dead:" World War II Burials in the Gettysburg National Cemetery

Sun. February 16 – Ranger John Nicholas ~ What you don’t know can hurt you: The Information War and the Gettysburg Campaign

Sat. February 22 – Ranger Tom Holbrook ~ If These Things Could Talk: Treasures from the Collection of Gettysburg National Military Park

Sun. February 23 - Historian Christopher Gwinn ~ Memories of Battle – Union Veterans Remember Culp’s Hill

Sat. February 29 - Ranger Barbara Sanders ~ Beyond Lincoln: How Veterans, Politicians, Poets and Filmmakers Address the Changing Meaning of the Civil War

Sun. March 1 – Licensed Battlefield Guide Mary Turk Meena ~ The Messy Business of War: Civil War Runs Headlong into Politics as Politicians Fight for Power and Breed Jealousy, Self-Promotion and Self-Preservation Among Military Leaders

Sat. March 7 – Ranger Zach Siggins ~ The Flying Dutchmen: The 11th Corps on July 1

Sun. March 8 – Artist Wendy Allen ~ Searching for the Exact Location of America’s Soul: An Artist’s Pursuit

Sat. March 14 – Ranger Matt Atkinson ~ Earl Van Dorn: The Life and Death of a Confederate Cavalier

Sun. March 15 – Ranger Karlton Smith ~ Soldier in Training: James Longstreet and the Mexican War

Sat. March 21 –Ranger Troy Harman ~ Scouting the Union Right: Lee and Culp’s Hill, July 1-2

Sun. March 22 – Ranger Bert Barnett ~ Personal Turning Points: Jefferson Davis and George Thomas

Winter Reading Adventures: January 4 - February 29, 2020

Join a park educator who will read aloud two different children's books and then lead an indoor activity or outdoor adventure.

Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center.
Saturdays at 11 am.
These programs are free of charge and recommended for families with children ages 4-10.

January 4 ~ America’s Civil War - B is for Battle Cry: A Civil War Alphabet and Pink and Say

January 11 ~ Civil War Mascots - The Legend of Old Abe: A Civil War Eagle and The Eternal Soldier: The True Story of How a Dog Became a Civil War Hero

January 18 ~ Civil War Musicians - The Last Brother: A Civil War Tale and Civil War Drummer Boy

January 25 ~ The Underground Railroad - I Am Harriet Tubman and Henry’s Freedom Box

February 1 ~ Abolitionists! - Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History and Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth

February 8 ~ Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln - I Am Abraham Lincoln and Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln: The Story of the Gettysburg Address

February 15 ~ The Battle of Gettysburg - Billy and the Rebel and The Soldier’s Tree

February 22 ~ Women of the War - Mary Walker Wears the Pants and Nurse, Soldier, Spy: The Story of Sarah Edmonds

February 29 ~ Bonus Book for Leap Day in anticipation of Women’s History Month - She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World

Selective demolition of modern additions at historic Gettysburg NMP Warfield house

News Release Date: November 21, 2019
Contact: Jason Martz, 717-338-4423

Gettysburg, PA - Selective demolition work will begin on Monday, December 2 at the historic Warfield house near the intersection of Millerstown Road and West Confederate Avenue. 

Contractors plan to be on site for about three weeks to complete the first stage of demolition that will include removing the modern 2nd and 3rd floors and the breezeway between the house and garage. A temporary exclusion fence will be erected while work is underway in order to secure the area. Additional demolition work will be completed in the spring. No road closures are expected on Millerstown Road but there may be unexpected intermittent delays.

During the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863 the small 1 ½ story tall, two-room stone farmhouse belonged to James Warfield, his wife Eliza, and their family. Purchased within a year of the battle, Warfield operated a successful blacksmith shop in Adams County. The Warfields were members of Gettysburg’s African American community. As the Confederate Army approached, they fled, fearful of capture. Confederate troops occupied the Warfield property on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, and launched attacks against Union troops occupying the nearby Sherfy Peach orchard. The Warfield family returned to find their property damaged and their belongings taken by the two armies—James Warfield calculated his losses at $516.

National Park Service preservationists are at work restoring the James Warfield home. Subsequent owners of the house made changes and additions to its size and footprint. Luckily, physical evidence of the many modifications to the house are visible to trained Park Service staff, and will allow preservation experts to stabilize and restore the home to its 1863 appearance. Restoration work will include re-establishing the original roofline and roof height; stabilizing and reconstructing sections of masonry walls; and recreating missing window and door components.

Remembrance Day Live In Gettysburg on Nov 23 - In person OR Online

Join the American Battlefield Trust in Gettysburg on November 23rd – either in person, or live on your smartphones, tablets or desktops.
This Saturday, we will be joined by special guests to cover Gettysburg's Remembrance Day Parade and associated events. The parade features Confederate and Union reenactors and living historians to commemorate the creation of the Soldiers National Cemetery, where President Abraham Lincoln famously delivered his Gettysburg Address. The parade route matches part of the route of the procession from Gettysburg to the Cemetery, where burials of Gettysburg dead was still in process.

And it’s not just a day for a parade; we have other surprises planned throughout the day that we’ll present live to your device! Tune in to the American Battlefield Trust Facebook Page and YouTube channel for this exclusive Battlefield Live event on this Saturday, November 23, 2019. Make sure you check both as connectivity may vary. We will start around 10:00 a.m. EST, and broadcast intermittently on one channel, the other, or both, throughout the day. Our live coverage of the parade will begin just before 1:00 p.m. EST.

Then, at 4 p.m., join Licensed Battlefield Guide Doug Douds and me in person for Key Moments on Cemetery Ridge—a "battlewalk" conducted in partnership with the Gettysburg National Military Park. This event is free and open to the public. You can find more information about the "battlewalk" here.

See you (virtually) that morning and through the parade or in person on the field at 4 p.m.!

Garry Adelman
Chief Historian
American Battlefield Trust

Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum Lectures on Nov 23 & 30

Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum (432 W Walnut St Allentown) (click here for website)
will sponsor two lectures in November related to the Civil War. See below for details:

Saturday, November 23, 1:00 p.m.: “James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War” 
Lecture and Book Signing Presented by Dr. Michael Birkner 
James Buchanan entered the White House in 1857 with sectional disharmony already intensifying.  By the end of his term, southern state secession commenced.  This talk, based in part on the recently published book The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens,will be presented by Dr. Michael Birkner of Gettysburg College.  FREE to members; non-members $8 adults, $3 children. 

Saturday, November 30, 1:00 p.m.: "Grant’s Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant" 
Lecture & Book Signing Presented by Dr. Chris Mackowski
Facing financial ruin and struggling against terminal throat cancer, Ulysses S. Grant fought his last battle to preserve the meaning of the American Civil War.  His war of words, “The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant,” cemented his place as one of America’s greatest heroes and most sublime literary voices.  FREE to members; non-members $8 adults, $3 children.

Eisenhower NHS Commemorates the 75th Anniv. of the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 16

Eisenhower National Historic Site Commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge

Join park rangers from Eisenhower National Historic Site in person in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, or online via Facebook Live, on December 16 as they commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.

Eisenhower wrote that the German offensive in the Ardennes was a time when, “the grand strategy and the high hopes of high command became a soldiers’ war, sheer courage, and the instinct for survival.” From Malmedy to Bastogne, American soldiers fought bravely and rose, “to new heights of courage, of resolution and of effort.” The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest battle for American forces in all of World War II. Nearly one in every ten American combat casualties during the war fell between December 1944 and January 1945. The fighting in the Battle of the Bulge exemplified the perseverance of the American soldier, causing British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to remark it as "undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war...."

On the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Axis assault, join park rangers to remember some of the American soldiers who gave the last full measure of devotion while repulsing the last great German war offensive. The hour-long program begins at 2 pm on December 16 just inside the Taneytown Road entrance to the Gettysburg National Cemetery. If you cannot make it in person, join us virtually online at https://www.facebook.com/EisenhowerNPS/ for a live-stream version of the tour.

Eisenhower National Historic Site preserves and interprets the home and farms of the Eisenhower family as a fitting and enduring memorial to the life, work, and times of General Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, and to the events of far-reaching importance that occurred on the property. Learn more at www.nps.gov/eise

Steven Sims is the New Superintendent of Gettysburg NMP and Eisenhower NHS

National Park Service (NPS) Region 1 Regional Director Gay Vietzke has named Steven Sims as the new superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site in Pennsylvania.

Sims is currently serving as superintendent of Valley Forge National Historical Park, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site and the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail. He will begin his new assignment in late January. 

“Steve brings a broad set of skills that will be very beneficial to both park units. He is experienced at bringing partners together to work towards a common goal and values the importance of community engagement,” said Vietzke. “His background as a West Point graduate and military officer will provide the valuable leadership that is needed to define and carry out the mission of the parks. In his current assignment, Steve has made significant strides in reducing the park’s maintenance backlog and preserving park resources. In addition to millions of dollars in completed projects Steve has led Valley Forge National Historical Park through a $14M visitor center renovation and the production of five new park orientation films which are scheduled for completion in summer of 2020.”

“I am honored to have been selected to serve as the superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site,” said Sims. “As a former Army Officer, I feel a deep responsibility to care for the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg, moreover, honoring the legacy of one of the most notable military generals and presidents of our nation is a privilege. I look forward to serving these parks and our neighbors in this new role.”

During his 22-year federal career, Sims has also served as the chief facility manager for the Northeast Region, facility manager for Independence National Historical Park and civil engineer/facility manager for the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, DC. Prior to working for the NPS he served as a consultant engineer and as an officer in the US Army. Sims is a graduate of West Point, where he earned a bachelors in science in civil engineering and was commissioned as an officer in the engineer branch. He also holds a masters in science in engineering management from the University of Missouri and an MBA from Norwich University.

Sims is originally from Tehachapi, California. He is married and has two children. His hobbies include hiking, fly fishing, beekeeping and riding his motorcycle.

"More of the Story" on Monuments

"More of the Story" on Monuments

by Waite Rawls – November 5, 2019

Paul Harvey made thousands of radio recordings in which he would tell a story and then add, “the rest of the story.” For those of us in the history field, we know there is no such thing as “the rest of the story,” because there is always “more of the story.” With that in mind, this article gives “more of the story” of the Confederate monuments in Richmond and elsewhere.

In today’s public narrative on Confederate monuments, we commonly are told that the great majority of the monuments were erected between 1885 and 1925. Many say that this time period corresponds with the “Jim Crow Era” or the “Lost Cause Era,” either of which identify them as products of the white supremacy and black suppression of that time. As a result, the monuments have become testaments to racism and their subject matter is racist and is to be rejected by a modern, enlightened, and appropriately sensitive population. While those causes cannot be dismissed or discounted, they are not the whole story.

Historians of the era would also call it the “Memorial Period” because of all the statues, monuments, and memorials that were being erected all across the country—North and South, East and West, urban and rural. As Dr. Caroline Janney points out in her book, Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation, the great tidal wave of monuments began shortly after the war with Union veterans going to the various battlefields and erecting markers—many small and some monumental in size—to their participation and valor in battle. And America’s Civil War battlefields are covered with these markers. Gettysburg alone now has 1,328 of them. By the 1880s, the effort to remember the valor and sacrifice of the soldiers had spread to the hometowns from which those soldiers came. Again, this phenomenon began in the North; but it quickly spread to the South, with southerners often noting their jealousy of the North or a sense of competition with the North.

Dedicated 1899

The efforts of women across the country quickly caught up and surpassed the efforts of the veterans themselves, with the women of the North again taking the lead. The Daughters of Union Veterans was created in 1885, and the National Society of the Daughters of the Union began in 1912. The southern counterpart, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, started in 1894, but numbered only about half the participants of northern women’s groups. Again, there was a sense of rivalry.

The “Memorial Period” became almost a frenzy of activity, with thousands of statues being erected. At the court house or town square of small towns across the country, monuments went up, usually with inscriptions that sounded like “In Honor of the Men of (your town here) Who Served in the Great Civil War” or something similar. The statues on the top of the pedestals were often ordered from catalog companies, where you could specify the type of hat, whether bearded or clean shaven, carrying a musket or a sword, and looking up and alert or down in silent memorial. In the larger cities, the monuments were larger and more elaborate. Many of the statues were custom made by sculptors who would do a Yankee one month and a Rebel the next. And many of them were monumental in size, much larger than anything in Richmond. The largest in the country is in downtown Indianapolis, erected in 1902 and 285 feet high, more than three times as large as Richmond’s biggest, the 90-foot-high Confederate pyramid in Hollywood Cemetery. The 60-foot-high monument in Richmond of Robert E. Lee, dedicated in 1890, was dwarfed a year later in Chicago with a 100-foot-tall monument to Grant and the 165-foot-tall Grant’s Tomb in New York in 1897. And all were much smaller than the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., which was done in the same period—begun in 1914 and completed in 1922.

Despite the competition, the South could never keep up, as there are more than twice as many markers, monuments, and statues in the North today than there are in the South. Counting monuments is a little tricky, because statues are clearly in the count, but how about other markers? The Southern Poverty Law Center has tried to count those in the South; but they include statues, schools, buildings, streets, license plates, dams, even a fire department that are all named after Confederates. Their count of Confederate markers comes to 1,728 in the entire country, with 223 in Virginia, only 95 of which are recorded as monuments. In contrast, counting only monuments and statues, websites for New York State claim 280 Civil War statues and monuments and Ohio sites claim 269.

“More of the story” would seem to indicate that most of the Confederate monuments fit into history better as part of a national narrative called the “Memorial Period,” during which the entire nation mourned the death of the 750,000 men who died and memorialized the sacrifices of the three million who served for causes which most of them believed were just. To single out the Confederate statues and attribute them wholly and only to the Jim Crow or Lost Cause era seems to me to tell only part of the complicated story of American history. As we contemplate the monuments to Confederates, we deserve to know more of the story.

This Civil War Dispatch has been brought to you by the Blue and Gray Education Society, a non-profit 501-3C educational organization. Please visit us at www.blueandgrayeducation.org.

Legendary Civil War historian James I. ‘Bud’ Robertson Jr. Died Nov 2nd

In memoriam

Legendary Civil War historian James I. ‘Bud’ Robertson Jr.

“History is the greatest teacher you will ever have,” James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr. often told his students. If history is the greatest teacher, many of them might have argued, then he was the second greatest.

Robertson, Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Virginia Tech, died on Nov. 2 after a long illness. He was 89 years old.

Read Virginia Tech news obituary here.

Visit our tribute page for Dr. Bud to read remembrances of him and to contribute your own stories.

From Virginia Center for Civil War Studies