Steve Wakefield, a Living Historian

May 4, 2011Posted inDanville Green, Historical events, Historical people, Uncategorized

A Vermont Civil War Hemlock explains why he takes part

Steve Wake­field, liv­ing his­to­ri­an with the Ver­mont Civ­il War Hemlocks

By Sharon Lakey

At the 125th anniver­sary of the sur­ren­der of Lee’s army at Appo­mat­tox, Steve Wake­field, liv­ing his­to­ri­an, had one of those crys­talline moments. “I was with the 5th of New Hamp­shire at the head of the col­umn. When I turned around, I saw 3,000 fed­er­al troops stand­ing behind me, all per­fect­ly aligned. “The moment didn’t last long, maybe three sec­onds, but in those few sec­onds, I was there.” To be trans­port­ed through time—those are the sec­onds a liv­ing his­to­ri­an cherishes.

In 1963, Andy Fish­er, a his­to­ry teacher in Con­cord, VT, attend­ed the 100th obser­vance of the Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg, a reen­act­ment of the bat­tle that turned the tide in the Civ­il War. The event was so inspir­ing to him, he returned home to cre­ate the Ver­mont Civ­il War Hem­locks, a non-prof­it group whose goal is edu­ca­tion. Three years lat­er, 16-year-old Steve Wake­field went to one of the group’s meet­ings and joined. He was uni­formed and equipped in 1971 and took part in his first reen­act­ment that year.

“I don’t like the term reen­act­ment,” said Wake­field. “I am a liv­ing his­to­ri­an.” He goes on to explain that to reen­act implies an indi­vid­ual is act­ing. “We don’t act; dur­ing an event, we actu­al­ly live the expe­ri­ence 24-hours a day. At night, we don’t retire to the tent with a beer cool­er.” And any­one who has wit­nessed the Hem­locks in action, per­haps in some­thing as sim­ple as a parade, rec­og­nizes imme­di­ate­ly that they are liv­ing in the moment, and it is not tak­en lightly.

Preparation for War and Watchful Waiting

May 4, 2011Posted inHistorical events, Uncategorized

Going to see the Ele­phant, Part 2

The 1st Ver­mont went to Fort Mon­roe at the begin­ning of the Civ­il War

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

From the out­set, both as it assumed sta­tus as an inde­pen­dent repub­lic in 1777 and as it entered state­hood in1791, Ver­mont out­lawed slav­ery.  Ver­mont set an exam­ple through its pro­gres­sive posi­tion of treat­ing blacks as equals long before the Civ­il War.  There were some instances of Slave-hold­ing in the state, but these were few.

Alexan­der Twilight

Alexan­der Twi­light, born in 1795 in Corinth was the first black man in Amer­i­ca to earn a col­lege degree.  He grad­u­at­ed from Mid­dle­bury Col­lege in 1823.  He went on to become a promi­nent edu­ca­tor in Brown­ing­ton, VT and to be elect­ed to the VT leg­is­la­ture in 1836.

Going to See the Elephant

March 30, 2011Posted inDanville Green, From the archives, Historical events, NSM articles
Harper’s Week­ly image of the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in April, 1861
By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

April marks the begin­ning of the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al obser­vance of the out­set of the Civ­il War with the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Har­bor, April 12, 1861. For the next four years the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety will reprint excerpts of arti­cles pub­lished in the North Star from 1861 to 1865 focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War.

“Going To See The Ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees in the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.

Under the lead­er­ship of Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks, Ver­mont respond­ed quick­ly to the call for men to join the Union forces. Dur­ing the Civ­il War, Ver­mont con­tributed more per capi­ta from its trea­sury and from its pop­u­la­tion of young men to the con­flict than any oth­er state in the Union. Danville’s finan­cial com­mit­ment of approx­i­mate­ly $36,000. to the war effort , as well as the num­ber of its enlist­ments was extraordinary.

In 1861, Danville had a pop­u­la­tion of about 2,500 con­sist­ing of about 350 men between the ages of 18 and 45. Out of this pool of men, from 1861 to 1865 Danville fur­nished 245 enlist­ments con­sist­ing of 194 dif­fer­ent men. The bal­ance was account­ed for by re-enlist­ments. By the end of the war, Danville had lost a total of 35 men. Twelve of those who lost their lives were killed in bat­tle and the rest died from expo­sure, star­va­tion, or sickness.