I remember when the National Civil War Museum opened in 2001 after costs of $32 million dollars to build and equip. Back then there were several problems with the collection and a fair amount of historians and historical preservation experts who felt that it did not tell the whole story of the war or that the money could be spent in more appropriate places. Most Civil War museums are located on battlefields, but, except for a raid across the Susquehanna in 1863, Harrisburg, where the museum is located, did not see any battles. In addition, the most famous battle of the Civil War was at Gettysburg, less than an hour south of the city. It already has a Civil War museum. Why not use the money to expand that site or add interpretive materials out on the battlefield?
A year ago, after avoiding the place for 23 years, I finally decided to visit it at its location at One Lincoln Circle at Reservoir Park in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I went in November 2024 after going to Gettysburg for Remembrance Day. My misgivings were confounded and I enjoyed visiting the museum.
The National Civil War Museum is in a large building on top of a hill at Reservoir Park. If you are visiting, you may want to bring a picnic lunch that you can enjoy in the park. The building is a neo-classical construction with good parking. I went on a weekday and found that there was parking right in front of the building. If you go on a weekend and that parking is full, there is plenty of parking in the rear. Tickets for the museum cost $16 for adults, $15 for seniors, and $14 for students. There is a “deal” for a family to get in for $60, but it only includes two adults and two students. If I were to buy the tickets separately it would also come to $60, so not really a deal.
A decade ago, there was some concern the museum promoted a “Lost Cause” interpretation of the Civil War. When I went, the museum did a good job of explaining the cause of the war and how it was fought. Like most museums of this sought, it did a poor job of covering Reconstruction. However, it did include quite a bit on slavery, Black refugees, and the participation of Black troops in the war. There were extensive displays of Confederate military items, but the museum gave an unbiased treatment of this collection.
I went on a Monday at 10:00 AM, when it opened. The building was large enough for me to spend time with each exhibit. It was a weekday in November so there was not the crowds that I had seen at the Gettysburg museum in the summer.
I had been at the Fredericksburg battlefield the summer before and had seen, for the fifth time, “The Angel of Marye’s Heights.” On December 14th, 1862 Sergeant Richard R. Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry went out onto the bloody field after the Union assault on the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg to offer water to the wounded Union soldiers dying there. At the Harrisburg museum, there is a statue called “Moment of Mercy” by sculptor Terry Jones that also depicts Kirkland at Gettysburg. The statue is not a reproduction of the Fredericksburg monument, but it contains similar themes.
Kirkland was killed less than a year later at the Battle of Chickamauga.
The story was reportedly first heard in print from Confederate General J. B. Kershaw, Kirkland’s brigade commander. Historian Michael Schaffner said that he looked into the story and found no contemporaneous accounts of the incident. In fact, it only appears in print in 1880 and it was thereafter recounted first in former-Confederate accounts of the war, and later told in many general histories. Schaffner said that he did not find sufficient evidence to debunk the story, but he questions why it never arises until 1880 even though Kershaw himself said that many Confederate and Union soldiers saw Kirkland courage.
Mac Wyckoff served as an historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. In 2010 he wrote an essay in which he identified a newspaper story published a week before Kershaw’s account in 1880. Wyckoff also found several accounts published after Kershaw’s letter that seemed to confirm the Kirkland story. He also found an account by Walt Whitman. The poet was not at Fredericksburg but he said he was nursing wounded men from the battle in Washington, D.C. when a soldier told him this story of a Confederate “Good Samaritan.” Whitman wrote this in his diary for January 21, 1863:
One middle-aged man, however, who seemed to be moving around the field, among the dead and wounded, for benevolent purposes, came to him in a way he will never forget; treated our soldier kindly, bound up his wounds, cheered him, gave him a couple of biscuits and a drink of whiskey and water; asked him if he could eat some beef.
I won’t try to resolve this controversy, but you can look at the sources and decide for yourself.
Below is the dedicatory marker.
As I left the memorial I was struck by how I thought it was copy of the Fredericksburg statue when I first saw it from the parking lot!
Next, there was a place where donors could buy a brick with an ancestors name carved on. New York, of course, had the most men serving in either army and had the most casualties.
There are adequate seats outside if you want to have lunch or if you are waiting for an Uber. Tour buses also stop here.
Inside the front door is a welcoming lobby where you can access the gift store, which also sells tickets for visitors.
There are reproductions of flags hanging in the three story entrance.
There are small displays here.
In this area I stopped to look at the displays.
I was a little bit disappointed, because I thought that the entire museum would include anecdotes about a company’s dog. However when I went into the main exhibit halls, I was very impressed at the objects put on display and the narrative explaining what I was seeing.
The first hall you will see gives a background of the war. There is a pike that John Brown wanted to pass out to emancipated slaves during his raid on Harpers Ferry.
There were objects associated with the election of 1860 including a ballot box and one of Lincoln’s hats.
The next section tells the story of Americans imprisoned as slaves.
There are devices on display for holding people in bondage.
A whip for punishing slaves. Slaves were routinely whipped while they were working to get their production up.
There is a display of an enslaved woman and her son being sold. Very often the mother would be sold to a different “owner” than the child and this might be the last time they saw each other.
There was a display of a slave collar that a slave had to wear. It was engraved with the name J Irwin, possibly to identify the owner.
There was also a slave jail which could hold escapees or people being held for sale.
The men depicted were hopeless or angry.
After the cause of the war, you next enter Charleston Harbor where sound and light tell you that Fort Sumter is under attack.
Inside the fort, storm clouds gathered as the fort surrendered. The figures and weapons are full-sized.
Next we see some of the uniforms of the early enlistees. As you likely know, many units wore clothing and hats that were highly decorative and would be replaced with mass manufacture uniforms or homespun.
There are also numerous displays of weapons. Almost every room as some type of firearm or something to stab other humans with. Below are two swords. The top was an 1850s sword of Dr. Hunter McGuire, Stonewall Jackson’s medical director. Below it is a Confederate saber used by an officer of the Georgia militia.
Next was a Confederate general in Regulation uniform. As you can see, the general wore blue trousers and a blue cap.
By a large window you can look out on Harrisburg and imagine Confederates across the river.
You can also imagine Camp Curtain where many Pennsylvania solders trained.
The view.
These epaulets belonged to a colonel.
There are a number of video monitors that go into advanced explanations of what you are seeing.
A Union brigadier general.
Below is a flag carried by the Union Irish Brigade. There are a number of flags from the Civil War on display.
There is a good explanation of the role of Confederate artillery and a very realistic artilleryman.
There are some statistical panels explaining who the Civil War soldiers were.
Below is a Confederate cavalryman with cavalry arms behind him.
Here is a rare Confederate Zouave uniform. This was used in the 3rd South Carolina Artillery.
Here is the equipment used by Confederate artillery.
Confederate naval cutlasses.
A Confederate naval staff.
Confederate infantry uniform and weapons.
There are significant displays on both sides navies.
A Union artillery exhibit.
Union cavalry.
The Union navy.
Union weapons.
A Zouave coat and fez from Harkins’ Zouaves, the 9th New York Infantry.
More Union navy exhibits.
There is a display on Sharpshooters.
Berdan’s Sharpshooters.
Stonewall Jackson’s Right Gauntlet.
Below is a sleeve from General George Pickett’s coat. Pickett was wounded in this arm at Gaines’ Mill and his coat sleeve had to be cut off for the surgeon.
There are just a few small-scale diorama’s like this one of Burnside’s Bridge.
Below is a portable writing kit that belonged to General Winfield Scott.
Another diorama shows the Union repulsing the Confederates at the Sunken Road at Shiloh.
Nearby is a very large display of camp life. This is the most masterful of al the displays. Nearby are objects that were used in camp.
Two Confederates cooking their dinner.
Next to it are cookware from the Civil War.
The reproduced uniforms are great!
Nearby is a wooden writing desk used by Lt. C. Seymour of the 2nd United State Colored Troops.
Kids loved looking at a soldier trying to make his mind up about what to buy from the sutler.
Next is an identification disk that men bought. These had the same purpose as modern dog tags-to identify the bodies of people killed in battle. This identified William Burkk of the Irish Brigade’s 88th New York regiment.
There was a panel discussing immigrant soldiers. The panel correctly points out that part of pro-Confederate propaganda was that Norther soldiers were largely “immigrant hirelings.” The panel is incorrect when it says that immigrant soldiers “were actually fewer in proportion to their numbers in the Northern population.” A quarter of Norths population was made up of immigrants and a quarter of the Union forces were immigrants.
There is also a section on the United States Colored Troops.
And, of course, band instruments.
Next is one of the most visited objects at the museum, the gauntlets of Robert E. Lee.
There is a full-size diorama of Alonso Cushing firing off his last shot at Gettysburg before being shot and killed.
I would caution parents that this diorama and the dioramas on medical care may be too disturbing for young children.
Nearby, there is a flag of the Second Corps.
One of the treasures of the museum is the only remaining intact Civil War ambulance.
There is also a diorama of a surgeon operating on a wounded soldier. Several visitors had to turn away when they saw it.
Next to it are medical instruments including a knife to open a vein to help patients bleed out their sickness. This did not work and only made the patient weaker. There is also a pain bullet that was used by the patient during surgery.
There were also crutches and prosthetics for use by men who lost an arm or leg.
There was also a display on prisoners of war. They displayed a hand carved spoon made from bone by a prisoner.
There was also a shotgun used by a guard at Andersonville to shoot down Union soldiers imprisoned there.
Before I left the room, I went back and took a photo of the inside of the ambulance which was fully equipped.
In the prisoner section there is the key to open up Libby Prison in Richmond.
There was on display a swallow tailed flag of the 8th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry regiment. Below it is a Spencer Carbine from 1864.
Next was a Ketchum Grenade, which was an 1860s hand grenade.
A close up view of one of the Springfields on display. You can still visit the Springfield Armory which has been turned into a National Park site. Here is my photo tour of that site.
Next was a Bowie Knife carried by one of Mosby’s Rangers. The owner was captured by Sgt. Hugh McIlhany in November 1864, at which time the New York cavalryman took possession.
Then there is the end of the war with a look at relics of Appomattox.
After Richmond was captured, this chair from the White House of the Confederacy was also captured.
Two treasures are Lee’s Bible and his hat cord. The Bible is inscribed “R.E. Lee City of Mexico 1847.”
Nearby is a relic from a common soldier. The Zouave fez was worn by Edwin Fisher of the 114th Pennsylvania also known as Collis’s Zouaves. Charles Collis was an Irish immigrant and he formed this unit in and around Philadelphia. The unit was a mix of native-born and immigrant men but its most famous member was a woman. Marie Tepe was a French immigrant who served as a vivandière for the regiment. She became nationally famous for her diligence and courage.
The Kearney Cross of Honor was one of the few medals given out to the Union soldiers. It was given unofficially for acts of bravery and courage.
This is the full accoutrements of weapons for a Union cavalryman.
An Abolitionist pin with the words “MILLIONS FOR FREEDOM NOT ONE CENT FOR SLAVERY 1863.”
There is also an original of the famous work Cotton Is King which explained the goodness of slavery and why it was natural and necessary. This was a bestseller before the war.
Below is a sheriff’s receipt showing payment for housing, whipping, and branding an escaped slave.
There was also a display of African American musical instruments.
A ribbon identifying the wearer as a survivor of the Second Corps during a Gettysburg reunion in 1891.
There was also attention paid to Ephraim Slaughter, one of the last surviving Black troops.
In fact, he is standing at the exit to the museum.
There is a brief look at the memory of the war. Below is a memorial book on the death of Major General Winfield Scott Hancock who was still in uniform when he died in New York.
The sword below was present to General Edward Hinks. He commanded a division of the United States Colored Troops.
Finally there was this carved scrimshaw which has a slave on it with the word “FREEDOM” and “1863” on it.
I found that the museum exceeded my expectations. You should expect to spend two to four hours here. If you are on your way to Gettysburg, this is a worthwhile detour.
