Two big picture questions you listed about Historical Context and historical method. First we want you to ask the question, how do people in the civil war about era civil war era value things. Those meetings may be of the esx museum in Salem Massachusetts on a thing that is actually two things that came together some our job is to show you how we do our work. His name is Charles William merrill. A of a soldier in company the 19 massachusetts, which was in the third gate a Second Division second core of the we can use this of thet, which is a part compiled service record, these are available in the national archives. Tocan use the federal census learn, about Charles William merrill. Bibles reads, from your affectionate pass and affectionate pastor august 12, 1862. That is three days after he enlisted. From a letter charles wrote to his mother in february of 1863. Foster,when you see mr. Remember me to him. Hardly a day passes by without my thinking of him. That happened. This is a map that many of you might be familiar with. As a soldier in john gibbons division of the second corps was actually attached to john six core. My question is to talk about that military context, but maybe also getting a photograph taken by an army hiscer who was early in work career detached to the u. S. Military Railroad System as a photographer because he was a prewar artist and photographer. Graphs but hefor happened to be with the union forces that did this photo and i loved writing the essay for it. I cannot go into all the details but it is unique. There are 100 photographs taken in the entire civil war that depict battlefields before they were cleaned up. This is our unique than most because it is taken a few hours after the battle and a few hours before the federals evacuated and give it back to the confederates so it is unique. I have been haunted by things. Look at the image of the dead soldier and the left foreground. It is one of the more Haunting Images i have come across, combat. Handtohand if you take this photograph on a computer and blow it up you can see more in it than you can here. One thing i want to point out is battlefield photographers in the civil war had something of a tendency to full the viewer in that they manipulated aspects of the scene. There have been cases of battlefield photography where soldiers have been of that goinn here. Russell did do a little of this. How many muskets seem to be neatly laid across that ditch . Or leaning gratefully against the stonewall . The imagination. Russell is trying to arrange the scene of death for you a bit. He is not doing anything with the dead bodies. There are four to six on them if you take a close look. This is the first time in u. S. History that battlefields battlefield death is photographed. As girl says in his essay, a tin cup that might have been used to give it into a wounded soldier placed on walltonewall stone itself. There are cloth dustbins of cloth and paper to give you a sense of battlefield strewn with things that there may not have been time to for the looters to come in. That does i hope give you a sense of variety with which thingsleather bindings, sturdy s and strong content paper provided ample resistance to longrange fire and bullets nearing the end of their trajectories. That is the material explanation for what you are seeing. Could expoundyou upon your understanding of other n at the top battle, mayapeshot, 3. The right, a casualty seat sheet this is wounded severely, and a notation by a clerk in 1885 going through sources that says index shows face severe. A lucky man. Very lucky. He probably wouldnt think of it that way. Wounds on may 12. Papers at the essex museum. That would be the next up for any of us interested in what happens to charlie merri reads d soul. Charlie merrill, a young massachusetts soldier had a ball passed through his head during the battle of fredericksburg. It entered near his right eye and was extracted behind his left ear. Another ball would have entered a vital part of his body had it not been arrested by a testament to which it was lodged. When the safeguard was shown the president come he sent to the hospital a handsome pocket bible, in which as an evidence of his warm regards, he caused to be inscribed, charles w merrill, company letterf the mad here, which was a journalist from newberry port who later wrote a memoir of having lived in hot not for 30 years with the political leaders of the capital. Telegram from a family 12. Nd, jt brown on may the telegram took the news up. Mr. Merrill, they were much startled but felt exceedingly grateful to you for your kindness and attention. They wish you do everything in the case to be done and have the remains brought to newberry port. Please notify when they leave washington. Do you come this week . In memoranda one year from coat, trousers, and one silver watch, one diary received the above named articles and money, signed agent william merrill, father of deceased. Can you talk about the church. This is the church where George Washington worshiped for most of his adult life. He was episcopalian and before the revolution the church was called the anglican church. They changed the name. Pew in this church and it was the first pew, the pew closest to the minister during the service. Everybody knew that was the washington family pew and they sat there and only they set their. It was a place of honor for washington and his family. There the essay i wrote on material culture of weapons in the civil war. This illustrates one of them. Doing this Research Made me stop thinking of anything resembling uniform training for shooting in civil war armies. Material culture lists argue tools are used for a purpose, the tools have different shapes and different purposes and people can acclimate themselves well or badly to any given tool depends on your eye hand by a guy in the ohio regiment which illustrates what i call the gun in apt guide of the civil war. He drew this musket of himself. There were adept soldiers and everybody in between. It is important we understand thinghe material think has a life of itsunconscious anp of the cane he uses in the attack. I got curious about what happened to the cane. A lot of people who know this story know that wellwishers sent you keynes to brooks new canes to brooks but i was interested in the used cane. There is a cane at the Old State House Museum in boston the wise. Henry wise has been a governor and some owners do not seem to have known what it was. They knew it was a cane. Others did know what it was. Eventually and it is interesting, it gets donated by a descendent of henry wise to a museum in boston, which is sumner turf. We go from this idea that this to the ideaks the