National Civil War Museum Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on May 5, 2020 in | Comments Off Topics in the Summer 2019 newsletter: PHF Donates Civil War 150 Exhibit to National Civil War Museum PHF Supports Preservation Efforts Historic Powder Horns Acquired for Fort Pitt by PHF-Held Endowment...
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Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman

Posted by Michael O'Malley on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off by Michael J. O’Malley III Robert King “Bob” Wittman in no way resembles the highly romanticized portrayals of FBI agents made famous over the decades by movie studios and television series. He is not the heavy-hitting, gang-busting, chain-smoking G-man, replete with fedora rakishly angled atop his head. Instead, he embodies the old-school preppy style – looking as though...
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Preserving The Past, Protecting The Future: The State Museum Of Pennsylvania

Posted by Sharon Silverman on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off Part of a museum’s mission is to collect, safeguard, exhibit, and interpret relevant objects and artifacts, and The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg fulfills this goal with singular distinction. Since 1905, the institution has preserved vast collections that chronicle the Commonwealth’s history and natural heritage from earth’s beginning to the present (see...
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Currents

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off Both Sides Now A decade in the making, Harrisburg’s newly opened National Civil War Museum boasts nearly thirty thousand square feet of exhibition space. Situated high atop a knoll in a city park, with a commanding view of the capital city below, the museum – described by the region’s press as “a world-class museum for a world-class collection” – is the first...
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Records of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off One of the basic responsibilities of government is the protection of its citizens from armed aggression. As a consequence of that responsibility, Pennsylvania’s government has created a vast amount of documentary evidence. Beginning with the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and culminating in the Vietnam Conflict (1961-1975), the Pennsylvania State Archives, observing its centennial in...
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Supporting the Troops: Soldiers’ Right to Vote in Civil War Pennsylvania

Posted by Jonathan White on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off As the presidential election of 1864 neared, the eyes of politicians in the North turned warily towards the armies of the Union. During the previous two years, nineteen northern states had passed legislation permitting volunteers to vote in the field, and many politicians believed that the soldiers’ votes would determine whether President Abraham Lincoln would be reelected in November....
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A Conversation about Citizenship

Posted by Barbara Franco on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), recently discussed the importance of citizen training with Pennsylvania’s First Lady, Judge Marjorie O.Rendell, and Richard Stengel, president and chief executive officer of the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia. Judge Rendell is active in promoting citizenship education through the...
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Bookshelf

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off Pennsylvania Civil War Trails: The Guide to Battle Sites, Monuments, Museums and Towns by Tom Huntington Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2007; 150 pages, paper, $14.95 As the 2011 opening of the American Civil War Sesquicentennial draws near, the national observance is guaranteed to produce a spate of weighty tomes analyzing the epic event of the nineteenth...
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“In Immortal Splendor”: Wilkes-Barre’s Fugitive Slave Case of 1853

Posted by William Kashatus on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off On Saturday morning, September 3, 1853, U.S. Federal Marshal George Wynkoop of Philadelphia and two deputies, John Jenkins and James Crossen, sat down to breakfast in the dining room of the Phoenix Hotel on River Street in the Luzerne County seat of Wilkes-Barre. At the far end of the room was a handsome, powerfully built mulatto named Bill (or, according to various newspaper accounts, known as...
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Black Settlement on Yellow Hill

Posted by Alisha Sanders on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off Anyone who has ever read about the Battle of Gettysburg or visited the historic American Civil War battlefield undoubtedly learned about the generals, the courageous soldiers who fought in the grisly three-day encounter, and the thousands that lost their lives on that hallowed ground in Adams County. The stories of the famous engagements that took place at Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, and the...
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