George Wunderlich, director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, discusses the life-saving lessons learned during four years of bloody conflict between North and South.

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This week on The Civil War, a talk by A. Wilson Greene on the West Virginia campaigns in the summer and fall of 1861.  Greene is the executive director of Pamplin Historical Park, and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Petersburg, Virginia.  He gave this talk in June to conference attendees at the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.

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This week on The Civil War, a talk by Wayne Hsieh on the army doctrine employed by  top generals in the Union and Confederate armies, and how it impacted the course of the war.  Hsieh is an assistant professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy.  He gave this talk in June at the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.

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Each week, American History TV marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. This week, authors and historians discuss the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in Leesburg, Virginia, which occurred six months into the war. To this day, the battle – fought on October 21st, 1861 – is the only military action in which a sitting United States senator was killed. Colonel Edward Dickinson Baker, who represented Oregon, died while commanding a Union brigade of General Charles Stone’s division.

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Old Dominion University professor Timothy Orr teaches a course on the Civil War and Reconstruction. In this lecture, he discusses how Union and Confederate forces handled prisoners of war, and takes a look conditions inside some Civil War prison camps. Old Dominion University is located in Norfolk, Virginia.

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The Battle of Wilson’s Creek in southwestern Missouri on August 10, 1861, is considered by many historians to be the second battle of the Civil War – taking place about three weeks after the better-know Battle of Bull Run back east in Virginia. Missouri State University History Professor William Piston talked about that battle and the events that led up to it at an event hosted by the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.

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Lincoln and Civil War scholars discuss why the Civil War didn’t end in 1861, the year that it began. They talked at the Lincoln Forum Symposium in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

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50 years ago, on April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” while being held in prison for his involvement in a city-wide civil rights protest called the Birmingham Campaign. King’s daughter, Bernice King, CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, joins Alabama’s governor, Birmingham’s Mayor and others for the unveiling of a historical marker aside the Birmingham Jail.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham civil rights campaign. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famed “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after being arrested for taking part in the protests. The campaign gained national attention after local officials used dogs and water cannons on kids after they took to the streets in what was known as the “Children’s Crusade.” A panel of authors and historians recall the turmoil of the time, as well as how Birmingham has chosen to remember its past. This event was part of the Alabama Historical Association’s annual conference.

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At the direction of Congress, the voices and experiences from the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20^th century are being documented in an oral history project. This effort is a collaboration of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, the Library of Congress and the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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