The Soldier's Civil War

2022 Symposium

By Kelly Hancock

After more than a year and a half of virtual programming, we are planning for the 2022 annual Symposium to be an in-person event. What is more, we will be holding the Symposium at Historic Tredegar for the first time.

Utilizing the Foundry building (the former home of the American Civil War Center) as our lecture hall, we not only will have room for a socially distanced event but also have the advantage of being next to the Museum with all its amenities. For those too distant to travel or unable to attend in person, we will be offering a live stream option.

As we delve into this year’s theme, “The Soldier’s Civil War,” we will examine how ordinary men, faced with violence, loneliness, fear, death, and, for Black men, racism, coped during the war and how the impact of war affected their postwar lives. Five sessions will explore aspects of soldiers’ experiences both during and after the war.

To kick off the daylong symposium, Dr. Peter Carmichael (Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies, Director of the Civil War Institute, Gettysburg College) will discuss letters written by Southern soldiers, whose education was so limited, they essentially spoke rather than wrote their letters. Carmichael, who spent nearly ten years writing The War for the Common Soldier (UNC Press, 2018), pored over numerous letters and records of soldiers from both the North and the South.

Dr. Lesley Gordon (Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History, University of Alabama) will use her case study of the 2 nd Texas Infantry to examine the impact of allegations of cowardice, a subject that until recently has gone largely unexplored. Discussing the escape of 3,000 Union prisoners of war, Dr. Lorien Foote (Patricia & Bookman Peters Professor of History, Texas A&M University) will explore U.S. soldier’s experiences in the final days of the war as well as the transformation of the Confederate homefront to the battle front.

Closing sessions will examine the war’s aftermath. Dr. Holly Pinheiro (Assistant Professor of History at Furman University), will explore the impact of the war on African-American soldiers and their families, revealing how economic and social instability, introduced by military service, resonated for years and even generations after soldiers left the battlefield. Dr. Jonathan Jones (Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Military Institute) will conclude the symposium with a talk focused on the opioid crisis among Civil War veterans.

In partnership with UVA’s John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History and sponsored by Americana Corner, the Symposium will be hosted and moderated by Dr. Caroline Janney, director of the Nau center, and held from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The registration fee is $75 for nonmembers, $50 for members, and $25 for students and educators. The streaming fee is $30. Visit our website acwm.org to register or call Kelly Hancock our public programs manager at 804-649-1861 ext. 121.

Photo illustration: ACWM