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The Common Soldier of the Civil War Webcast

War through the eyes of Billy Yank and Johnny Reb

Presented by the Weider History Group and American Military University

Please click below to view the full recording of this webcast.

<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/11141195">Watch on Vimeo</a>

The Common Soldier of the Civil War Webcast from American Military University and Weider History Group.

Editor's note: this is the first of three webcasts on the Civil War.

While the names and stories of many Civil War heroes often come to mind, have you ever wondered about the common soldier of the Civil War?

Civil War aficionados readily recall the names of Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Stonewall. However, there is a renewed and growing interest in the common soldier of the Civil War, “Johnny Reb” and “Billy Yank”. From battling in muddy trenches to charging through fields of enemy fire, the common soldier also combated the equally-deadly diseases that plagued the theater of war. But what motivated him to fight?

Long after the guns had been silenced, the huge volumes of letters written by these Civil War “grunts” remain a window for viewing and contemplating what they thought, what they ate, how they were trained, their discipline, their equipment, and how they occupied their spare time. This webcast discussed the common soldier of the Civil War, including statistics about the troops, prewar occupations, motivating factors, weaponry, and the soldiers’ quotes that brought this presentation to life.

Watch American Military University and the Weider History Group's recorded webcast event that brought light to what it must have been like for these men to “see the elephant” and, more importantly, how they spent their time both on active campaigning and winter camp.

The webcast also included a question and answer session.

This event is part of a series of three Civil War webcasts sponsored by AMU and the Weider History Group. Other events include:

 

  • Available Programs

  • About the Weider History Group

    Weider History Group offers a portfolio of 11 magazines designed for the History Enthusiast. Covering world history - with an emphasis on America’s History, including our nation’s founding, the Civil War, World War II and the Vietnam War - our readers come to us because they believe that what happened then is relevant and important to today’s world.

    Online, the Weider History Group features a network of sites designed to educate and entertain readers across a broad range of historical interests:

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Speaker Profiles 

Dr. Barry J. Shollenberger
AMU Professor of History

Barry J. Shollenberger, AMU Professor of HistoryDr. Barry Shollenberger is Provost Emeritus at Virginia College in Birmingham, Alabama and is also retired from The University of Alabama where he served as Associate Director of Distance Education and president of the State of Alabama Distance Learning Association. Dr. Shollenberger has taught American History for twenty years, is a member and contributor to the Society for Civil War Historians, and has taught continuously at AMU since 1997.      

         

Dana B. Shoaf
Editor, Civil War Times

Dana B. Shoaf, Civil War TimesDana B. Shoaf is the editor of Civil War Times, the oldest Civil War magazine in publication. Shoaf taught American history at colleges in Maryland and Northern Virginia before working for Time-Life as a writer and researcher. He has published dozens of articles dealing with the Civil War and often speaks at conferences. A committed preservationist, Shoaf is a former board member of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation.