Two speakers make presentations at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society’s 2012 Civil War Symposium. First, author Nikki Taylor addresses the issue of citizenship among free African Americans, and the story of Cincinnati’s Black Brigade. Then, history professor Diane Barnes talks about the abolition movement.

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Two speakers make presentations at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society’s 2012 Civil War Symposium. First, author Fergus Bordewich talks about the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, the Congressional panel created to monitor Northern military affairs. Then, economics professor Jenny Bourne talks about how the war was financed.

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The New-York Historical Society hosts this discussion with historians Harold Holzer, James McPherson, and William Davis, who talk about Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as opposing Civil War commanders-in-chief.

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Dr. Ira Rutkow discusses how the Civil War changed medicine and surgery.  Dr. Rutkow is the author of "Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine."

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Historians and authors discuss ongoing legacies of the Civil War — the issues and controversies still being borne out today. Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition hosted this event.

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Hari Jones, curator and assistant director of the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum, talks about the contributions of African American Women during the War.

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Yale history professor Joanne Freeman and University of Chicago political science professor William Howell are interviewed about acts of violence in the U.S. Congress leading up to the Civil War, and congressional checks on war powers in the modern era. Professor Freeman is working on a book titled "Field of Blood: Congressional Violence in Antebellum America." Professor Howell has written about congressional checks on presidential war powers. The interview was recorded at the Organization of American Historians meeting in Milwaukee.

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Mary Elizabeth Bowser was a former slave who became a Union spy in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. She was part of a pro-Union underground spy ring run by Elizabeth Van Lew, the daughter of a prominent Richmond citizen. In this program, authors Elizabeth Varon and Lois Leveen talk about the life and story of Ms. Bowser, as well as her relationship with Ms. Van Lew. The two authors also discuss how they wrote and researched their books. The event took place at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.

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The Catoctin Center for Regional Studies hosted a two-day conference on African Americans and the Civil War at Frederick Community College in Maryland. In this program, you'll hear first from historian James McPherson, who examines the reasons for recruiting black soldiers for the war effort. He also discusses the shift from fighting to preserve the Union to fighting to end slavery. Then, Columbia University history professor Barbara Fields looks at racism and slavery during the Civil War era and the motives behind emancipation.
 

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The National Park Service rededicates Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial. As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and after a six-year restoration effort, Americans can once again see the house much as Lee knew it.

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