National Civil War Museum
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The National Civil War Museum, located at 1 Lincoln Circle at Reservoir Park in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is a permanent, nonprofit educational institution created to promote the preservation of material culture and sources of information that are directly relevant to the American Civil War of 1861–1865, and the aftermath period of the war as related to Civil War Veterans' service organizations, including the Grand Army of the Republic, United Confederate Veterans and the Daughters of the Confederacy to 1920. The museum also serves as the National Headquarters for the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW), the legal successor to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).
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[edit] Location
The museum is located in a two-story brick building in Harrisburg's Reservoir Park. The exhibits and suggested tour begin on the second floor of the museum (first ten galleries) and continue on the first floor (last seven galleries and theater). The Monitor and Merrimack café and museum offices are on the second floor. A gift shop, temporary exhibit gallery, and museum support are on the first floor. A "Walk of Valor," consisting of red bricks bearing the names of Civil War veterans who have been honored by their surviving descendants, contributes to the museum's memorial-like grounds.
[edit] Exhibits
The museum's exhibits are designed to tell "the entire story of the American Civil War ... without bias to the Union or Confederate causes".[1] The exhibition covers the period from 1850 to 1876, with its major focus on the Civil War years of 1861 to 1865. The majority of the collection of over 24,000 artifacts, photographs, documents, manuscripts, and other printed matter was acquired between 1994 and 1999 by the city of Harrisburg, under Mayor Stephen R. Reed, who is the museum's founder. Part of the rationale for the museum's location is Harrisburg's relative closeness to Gettysburg, and the many tourists who visit there.
The museum's galleries are as follows: 1) A House Divided, 1850–1860 (examines the events leading up to the Civil War); 2) American Slavery: The Peculiar Institution, 1850–1860 (how nineteenth century Americans saw slavery); 3) First Shots, 1861 (Fort Sumter); 4) Making of Armies (recruiting, training, and equipping both armies); 5) Weapons and Equipment (with many artifacts); 6) Campaigns and Battles of 1862 (early campaigns and the tactics, strategies. and logistics); 7) Battle Map, 1861–1862 (emphasis on how geography and topography affected troop movements); 8) Camp Curtin (the Civil War's largest Union camp, located in Harrisburg); 9) Why Men Fought, 1861–1863 (motivations of soldiers on both sides); 10) Civil War Music (displays of musical instruments and recorded music to listen to); 11) Gettysburg, 1863 (a turning point of the war); 12) Cost of War (Civil War medicine); 13) Women in the War (women's various roles); 14) Navy (focuses on maritime engagements); 15) Campaigns and Battles of 1864–1865 (the last years of the Civil War); 16) Battle Map (from Stones River to Appomattox); 17) Lincoln: War & Remembrance (remembering the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, and veterans' roles after the war).
A video, "We the People", focuses on ten characters from all walks of life and their fates before, during, and after the war. It is presented in segments in galleries 1, 4, 9, 14, and concludes in the theater.
[edit] Artifacts
The museum contained a large collection of original artifacts, including weapons, uniforms, camp and personal effects, and similar items. Among the many articles on display are:
- Bloodstained coat sleeve of George Pickett's uniform coat from Gaines' Mill
- Pickett's kepi from Gettysburg and a ringlet of his hair
- Robert E. Lee's personal Bible captured four days before Appomattox Court House
- George Armstrong Custer's uniform and personal baggage, captured at the Battle of Trevilian Station
- Swords from Ulysses S. Grant, J.E.B. Stuart, David Birney, John Geary, and several others
- the only remaining original Civil War hospital wagon left in the world
- rare chains, iron shackles, and bracelets from the antebellum slave trade
- lock of hair from Abraham Lincoln and other items from his assassination, including a part of Mary Todd Lincoln's dress she wore at Ford's Theater that evening.
