American History TV was LIVE on September 16 from Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland, covering events marking the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.

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Historians Brooks Simpson and Mark Grimsley lead a group on a day-long tour of Antietam National Battlefield, the 1862 engagement that is considered the bloodiest single day in American history. Visiting key locations at the National Park, including the Cornfield, Sunken Lane and Burnside Bridge, the historians use the landscape and demonstrations to show what the battle was like for the armies on the ground.

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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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Iver Bernstein discusses the causes and consequences of the New York City Draft Riots of mid-July 1863, that resulted from the federal draft for additional troops to fight in the war. Mr. Bernstein spoke at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society’s 2012 Civil War Symposium.

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History professor Gary Gallagher speaks about the importance of studying military history in the last of a series of sessions from a conference organized by the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. The theme of this year’s gathering was Leadership and Generalship in the Civil War. The Virginia Military Institute hosted the conference.

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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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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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This is a film produced in 1961 by the U.S. Army on two figures from the Civil War era: photographer Mathew Brady and American Red Cross Founder Clara Barton. This film aired as part of the "The Big Picture" series, produced from 1951 through 1971 and shown on ABC and in syndication from 1951 into the 1970s.

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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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