behind AotW

This is a picture taken June 6, 1936 in the cemetary at Winchester on decoration day.
I [George Dellinger] am in uniform X. The other one is Daniel Miller, a Confederate vet,
now in his 100th year. I am in my 92nd year (from the back of the photo)

George Dellinger, formerly of Company D, 23rd Virginia Cavalry, sent this photograph to the Hagerstown (Md.) Historical Society in response to a US Antietam Celebration Commission questionnaire. The Commission organized the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of that momentous battle at Sharpsburg, Maryland on 17 September 1937, and had canvassed surviving Civil War veterans for their memories and present circumstances.

This and other photos, along with letters of reply from many of the veterans, are now online at one of two new exhibits created by the folks at the Western Maryland Historical Library.

This afternoon, thanks to Google’s blogsearch, I came upon something I haven’t seen before: a DIY instant history website.

Wethersfield in the Civil War is apparently brand new from someone at the Wethersfield (Connecticut) Historical Society and looks like a transcription of the work of one Wes Christensen. The site is hosted on Blogger and currently contains 42 posts, almost all dated 14 December. Some are placeholder pages, so perhaps this is just the beginning, but it’s already a complete, if bare-bones, website.

Most of the posts are listings–for each Regiment or Battery–of the men from Wethersfield who served in the War. Some of these include summaries or anecdotes of the unit’s service. Included is a table of contents which links to all the posts.

16th CT at Antietam
from ANBP

Atypical is the lengthy introduction, which makes particular note of the 16th Connecticut Infantry, one of the many green regiments so badly hurt at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

Aspiring digital historians could take a lesson here. Do you want to get a lot of information up on the web in a hurry with the minimum technical investment and no cost? Consider basic free blogging like Blogger or WordPress. Quick and painless.

It would be a good way to get your feet wet, anyway.

In mid-2003 I completely reworked Antietam on the Web, dropping unmanageable static HTML and using a new database to store the contents. To create and deliver that content I built a rudimentary Content Management System (CMS) in PHP. Today I’d download a ready-made CMS and customize it to suit rather than build my own. No need to reinvent that wheel.

In October I volunteered to build a new website with/for an organization engaged in a good cause related to the Civil War. Among other things, their site will be updated by non-web people, so I think an off-the-shelf CMS will be a good foundation for the project.

About a month into development, here’s how it’s going …