Topics & Presenters
9:30 a.m. | Behind the Scenes - The Making of Gettysburg’s Lost Love Story
Harding details key findings from his book Gettysburg’s Lost Love Story - The Ill-Fated Romance of General John Reynolds and Kate Hewitt. Harding recounts what first drew him to the mystery surrounding Kate Hewitt’s true fate and highlights the ensuing journey that led him and his research associate, Mary Stanford Pitkin, down the path of discovery. In this special “behind the scenes” presentation, which was prepared expressly for the Sacred Trust event, Harding shares research insights and select images pertaining to this remarkable story of heroism, tragedy, sacrifice and perseverance.
Jeffrey J. Harding is a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park, independent historian, author and leadership consultant. A retired 33-year career employee of the Department of the Navy (civilian), Jeff’s published works detail a myriad of historical subjects. His keenest interests center upon solving age-old mysteries, especially those surrounding the American Civil War and WWII. His latest quest involved a mystery that had haunted Gettysburg historians for over 150 years - the true story of General John Reynolds's secret fiancée, Kate Hewitt.
11 a.m. | Civil War Soldiers and the Psychological Trauma of War
The physical damage suffered by Civil War soldiers has been well documented. Less understood has been the emotional and psychological impact of the war on its participants. Sommerville will address the challenges historians face when attempting to explore cases of war trauma, a phenomenon that was not yet known or recognized in the 19th century. Despite this, abundant records from the era – asylum patient histories, newspaper accounts, service records and coroners’ reports – make abundantly clear that psychic injuries afflicted many Civil War soldiers, hindering readjustment to civilian and family life.
Dr. Diane Miller Sommerville is a Professor of History at Binghamton University in upstate New York. Dr. Sommerville specializes in 19th century southern history, notably issues of gender, race, sexuality and medicine, and teaches courses on the Civil War, early U.S. women's history, history of the South and sex in American history, among other topics. She is the author of two monographs: Rape and Race in the Nineteenth Century South (UNC Press, 2004) and Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil War-Era South (UNC Press, 2018), a Lincoln Prize finalist and winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize for best book on southern history by a woman.
1 p.m. | Weapons of the Weak: The Underground Railroad and How the Most Powerless People in the United States Caused the Civil War
Many Americans likely associate the Underground Railroad with exciting stories of Black women and men who, with the help of Black and White Allies, escaped from the clutches of slavery. We are less familiar, however, with how important those stories were to White Americans in the North and South in the years leading up to the Civil War. Hancock lays out how the stories of the Underground Railroad were indeed quite dramatic—even more so because they reveal how and why the nation fought such a devasting war and continues to struggle to tell a more complete story of that war.
Dr. Scott Hancock is an Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at Gettysburg College. After spending 14 years working with teenagers in crisis, he switched careers and received a Ph.D. in Early American History in 1999. These two careers fuel his desire to tell stories of people whom society and history have often discounted as troublesome and unimportant, such as the Black women, men and children who sought to escape slavery in antebellum America. Dr. Hancock joins historians who now see the underground railroad as one of the primary causes of the American Civil War and national emancipation.
2:30 p.m. | Civil War Photo Sleuthing: Past, Present and Future
People have struggled to identify unknown soldiers and sailors in Civil War photos since even before the war ended. Luther traces the 160-year history of Civil War photo sleuthing, showing how the passage of time has magnified some challenges, and also unlocks exciting new possibilities. Luther will show technologies like social media, facial recognition and digital archives allow us to solve photo mysteries that have eluded families and researchers for a century and a half.
Dr. Kurt Luther is Associate Professor of Computer Science and (by courtesy) History at Virginia Tech. He is a senior editor at Military Images magazine, in which he has published a column on Civil War photo sleuthing since 2014. He is the project director for Civil War Photo Sleuth (civilwarphotosleuth.com), a website for identifying unknown Civil War portraits that has been featured by TIME, Smithsonian and The History Channel.
4 p.m. | All That Mortals Could Do: The 107th Ohio at Gettysburg
The 107th Ohio was one of six ethnically German regiments mustered from the Buckeye State. Hailing from a politically divided region, the men weathered two devastating battles, the scourge of nativism, inconsistent support from home, and the ordeal of life in camp and on picket. The regiment's costly deployment at Gettysburg helps us to interrogate the physical, psychological and emotional demands of Civil War soldiering – as well as key themes like courage, cowardice and the will to endure.
Dr. Brian Matthew Jordan is an Associate Professor of Civil War History and Chair of the History Department at Sam Houston State University. He is the author or editor of five books on the Civil War era, including Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending, which was a finalist (one of three runners-up) for the Pulitzer Prize in History, and A Thousand May Fall: An Immigrant Regiment's Civil War. He is at work on a major interpretive synthesis of the Civil War era.
7 p.m. - Tickets Required (SOLD OUT) | Moving and Fighting the Army of the Potomac During the Gettysburg Campaign
Brown discusses what it took to feed, shoe, clothe, equip and arm 91,000 officers and men and what it took to feed, harness and shoe 60,000 horses and mules, not to mention what it took to supply the army with the necessary ammunition for all the branches of service (infantry, cavalry and artillery) and to be prepared to care for, and to care for, thousands of sick and wounded as well as thousands of prisoners of war. Brown covers what General Meade did to address matters, and what happened to make those efforts, in large measure, unsuccessful.
Kent Masterson Brown is an award-winning writer and attorney in Lexington, Kentucky. Kent was the creator and first editor of the national magazine, “The Civil War,” and is the author of six books, including Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander (University Press of Kentucky, 1993); The Civil War in Kentucky; Battle for the Bluegrass State (Savas Beatie, 2000); Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (University of North Carolina, 2005); One of Morgan’s Men: The Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry (University Press of Kentucky, 2011); and Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command (University of North Carolina Press, 2021). Starting in 2007, Kent extended his historical pursuits to writing, hosting, and producing eight award-winning documentary films for public and cable television.