More details on Civil War Bus Trip

 Have you ever wanted to visit Gettysburg?

 The History Department is sponsoring a field trip to three Civil War battlefields next month: Gettysburg, Antietam, and Harpers Ferry. The trip will depart on the afternoon of Friday, April 4 and return Sunday night, April 6. The cost is only $340 + meals.

 

This bus trip is associated with History 320: The Civil War and Reconstruction, taught by Drs. Phil Payne and Chris Mackowski, but is open to all members of the SBU community.

 

On Friday, we'll leave Bonas around noonish (the bus company will let us know). We'll stop for a fast-food dinner along the way, then we'll arrive in Harrisburg, PA, to sit in on a meeting of the Harrisburg Civil War Roundtable for a talk that evening about Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs. From there, we'll head to Gettysburg to check in.

 

Saturday, we'll spend the day touring the battlefield, arguably the most famous historical landscape in America. We’ll go through the museum at the Visitor Center, and later in the evening, we’ll have special after-hours, behind-the-scenes access for a program at the Gettysburg Cyclorama, a building-sized painting that depicts part of the battle and served as the IMAX movie of its day.

 

On Sunday, we'll head down to Harpers Ferry to explore. This is where John Brown conducted a raid that become one of the key events in the lead-up to the Civil War. It was also home to the Niagara Movement, an early precursor to the Civil Rights movement. Plus, the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers is so beautiful that Thomas Jefferson said, “This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”

 

We'll grab lunch, then head to Antietam for the afternoon where Licensed Battlefield Guide Kevin Pawlak will show us around. Antietam was the site of the single-bloodiest day in American history, with nearly 23,000 casualties. It was also the birthplace of photojournalism, where the first images were captured in the immediate wake of battle, stunning America.

 

We'll head back to campus around 5:00 p.m., which will be about a 5-hour drive, with a quick dinner on the way.

 

For more information, or for a link to sign up, email Dr. Phil Payne at ppayne@sbu.edu or Dr. Chris Mackowski at cmackows@sbu.edu. Registration deadline is Friday, March 21.

 

Special thanks to the Jandoli School of Communication and Emerging Civil War for helping make the trip possible!