Each week American Artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums and historic sites around the country. At the outbreak of the Civil War in the spring of 1861, Washington, DC, was lightly defended and vulnerable to attack, with only one fort located 12 miles south of the city and the Confederate state of Virginia just across the Potomac River. By 1865, the nation’s capital arguably had become the most fortified city in the world, with about 70 armed forts and batteries encircling the city. We visited three of the surviving forts with Dale Floyd, author of a study on the Civil War Defenses of Washington for the National Park Service.

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Between 1861 and 1868, Clara Barton, known as the Angel of the Battlefield and founder of the American Red Cross, lived in a Washington, DC boarding house on 7th street, NW. She employed twelve clerks on the third floor in her "Missing Soldiers Office," where they received over 60,000 letters from families searching for lost sons and husbands.

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Clara Barton died 100 years ago on April 12, 1912. Between 1861 and 1868, she lived in a Washington, DC boarding house and employed as many as twelve clerks in her "Missing Soldiers Office."  In 1996 the General Services Administration was preparing the building for demolition when they discovered artifacts eventually proving that this was the lost office of the founder of the American Red Cross. 

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American History TV visits Chatham Manor, the only known house in the U.S. visited by both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Built in 1771 by Virginia Continental Congress delegate William Fitzhugh, it was a Union headquarters during the Civil War and a field hospital during the Battle of Fredricksburg where Clara Barton & Walt Whitman tended to the wounded and dying. Chatham was given to the National Park Service in 1975 and is part of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

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 The Museum of the Confederacy in downtown Richmond, Virginia has been in operation since 1896. Its collection of over 130,000 artifacts includes the personal belongings of well-known generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The museum's Sam Craghead took us on a tour of vintage battle flags, uniforms, photographs and weapons.

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The 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia was fought from December 11 to 13 inside and near the small transportation hub along the Rappahannock River, an hour’s drive south of Washington, D.C.  During events marking the 150th anniversary of a battle that resulted in almost 2,000 deaths and 16,000 casualties, American History TV captured video of re-enactments, including a river crossing and landing under fire and street-to-street urban combat.  We spoke with National Park Service historian Frank O'Reilly, homeowner Charles McDaniel, and several participating re-enactors.

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In this second of a two-part look at a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit, curator Eleanor Jones Harvey gives a gallery tour and discusses the symbolism of a selection of paintings and photographs with a group of journalists.

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An exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum explores how artists depicted the crisis of conflict as it was happening. Smithsonian Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey reveals how the war can be seen in seemingly unrelated works such as landscape paintings; and also examines the work of several soldier artists. American History TV attended a press briefing and took a tour of the galleries. This is part one of a two-part program.

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Two Civil War sailors who went down with the USS Monitor ironclad off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in 1862 are interred in a full military honors funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.

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This June marks the 50th Anniversary of two of President John F. Kennedy’s most memorable speeches. On June 10th 1963, JFK delivered the commencement address at American University known as his “Peace Speech.” He called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  On June 26th 1963, President Kennedy took a harder line in West Berlin, famously stating that as a free man he took pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.” This is a discussion from the Kennedy Presidential Library about the significance and lasting influence of these two addresses.

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