Recorded Feb. 23, 2012 in Mayser Gymnasium.
Watch a short highlights video
While the Civil War has often been described as simply a Southern rebellion, historian Adam Goodheart, director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and author of the recent New York Times bestselling book 1861: The Civil War Awakening, argues that it swiftly became a revolutionary opportunity for many different groups of Americans. In his talk, Goodheart will focus on members of two ethnic communities, African Americans and German Americans, who seized upon the outbreak of war as an opportunity to seek a new birth of freedom.
As America marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began. 1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents’ faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal. It set Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness, and millions of slaves on the road to freedom.
Sponsored by Center for Liberal Arts & Society, Public Affairs Speakers’ Fund, Department of History, Department of American Studies
One of the best examples of these themes is actually the valedictorian of F&M’s Class of 1861, Adam C. Reinoehl. Born to a Pennsylvania Dutch family in Lebanon, Reinoehl enlisted in the Keystone Zouaves and was wounded twice, including in the attack on Fort Wagner immortalized in Glory. After the war, he carried on Thaddeus Stevens-style Radical Republicanism representing Lancaster in state politics, and newspaper accounts show him deeply linked politically to Lancaster’s African-American community.
Learn more about Reinoehl and read his letters at:
http://www.lancasteratwar.com/2012/01/adam-c-reinoehls-civil-war.html