This Memorial Day weekend, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, Richmond National Battlefield Park, and Petersburg National Battlefield have teamed up with several communities across America to offer programs about how the news of the deadly spring of 1864 in Virginia reverberated across the nation. The three parks have sent rangers to Litchfield, CT; Nicholasville, KY; Bangor, ME; Dearborn, MI; Natchez, MS; Charleston, SC; and Stockbridge, WI. Programs will also take place at each of the three parks, and everything will culminate this evening with candlelight illuminations at 8 p.m. at each site, and the simultaneous playing of taps at 9 p.m.
What a brilliant and innovative program! This is a great way for the Park Service to reach beyond the battlefield to communities across the nation, and a thought provoking initiative that will hopefully inspire participants to take away a deeper meaning from these sesquicentennial events, one that goes beyond tactics and strategy and begins to come to grips with the realities of war. It's also a fitting way to reconnect our nation with the origins and true meaning of Memorial Day. Personally, I think Reverberations is one of the most interesting of the many programmatic offerings that have come out of the Civil War Sesquicentennial.
Some of these programs will be live streamed today - you can watch here.
Battlefield Back Stories - Thoughts on the Civil War, its battlefields, and public history.
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