GMALL Lectures – The Civil War: Its Causes and Their Legacy
Source: GNAT TV
While slavery was clearly a part of why the Civil War was fought, the vast majority of Confederate soldiers were not slave owners. They fought and were willing to die for other reasons. Many of those reasons have not gone away and that is why a cold version of the Civil War persists to this day. This talk, by Steven Sodergren, Professor of History and Political Science at Norwich University, examines the various causes of the war, focusing on what those who participated in it saw as their motives.
Two Civil War Veterans Talking About Fighting in the Civil War
Source: The History Zone
These are two Civil War veterans, aged 84 and 94, talking about fighting in the Civil War. Filmed in 1929, at the time of the Civil War the two men would have been 16 years old and 26 years old when the war started in 1861.
Civil War Soldiers Telling War Stories in 1938: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Veteran’s Reunion
Source: Life in the 1800s
These are Civil War veterans telling war stories in 1938. The Gettysburg reunion was an encampment of American Civil War veterans on the Gettysburg Battlefield for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The gathering included approximately 25 veterans of the battle with a further 1,359 Federal and 486 Confederate attendees out of the 8,000 living veterans of the war. The veterans averaged 94 years of age. Transportation, quarters, and subsistence was federally funded for each veteran and their accompanying attendant. If an attendant was needed it was provided. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s July 3 reunion address preceded the unveiling of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial; a newsreel with part of the address was included in the Westinghouse Time Capsule for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
