American Civil War Museum

Tredegar History Tour
2024-05-18 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-05-12 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-05-11 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-05-05 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-05-04 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-04-28 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-04-27 11:00 - 11:45 (America/New_York) | ACWM – Historic Tredegar, 480 Tredegar St., Richmond, Virginia, 23219, United States
Find yourself in the fascinating history of the former Tredegar Iron Works with our “Tredegar History Tour”! Located in the heart of downtown Richmond, our museum is situated on the very site where the iron foundry once stood.

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND (Saturday, Sunday & Monday) at 11:00 AM or 3:00 PM to explore one of Richmond’s famous historical sites and learn about the cannon-making process in a special site tour. We’re also doing musket firing demonstrations at 1pm each day this weekend! (included with Museum admission). You don’t want to miss it!

Book Talk with Jim Downs - "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine"
2024-05-16 18:30 - 19:30 | Virtual
Virtual Book Talk

Join us as historian Jim Downs reveals that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of non-consenting subjects―conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of the empire.

Plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories in which physicians came to understand the spread of disease. Military doctors learned about the importance of air quality by monitoring Africans confined to the bottom of slave ships. The field hospitals of the Crimean War and the US Civil War were carefully observed experiments in disease transmission.

Jim Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History. He is the author, co-author, and editor of multiple books and anthologies, including Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine (Harvard UP, 2021), which has been translated into Chinese, French, Korean, Japanese, and Russian.

He has published articles and essays in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Slate, Vice, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The L.A. Review of Books, among others. Downs has published book chapters in several edited volumes, most recently in Remembering the Memphis Massacre: An American Story (UGA Press, 2020). Downs is the Editor of Civil War History. He was awarded the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellowship at the Hutchins Center for African and African American History at Harvard University in 2022-23. Downs earned his P.h.D. in History at Columbia University, his MA in American Studies also at Columbia University, and his BA in American Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. The Organization of American Historians named him a Distinguished Lecturer in 2014-17, which was then renewed in 2017 and again in 2020.

Reexamining the foundations of modern medicine, Jim Downs shows that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of nonconsenting subjects―conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of empire. Plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories in which physicians came to understand the spread of disease.

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"The Unvanquished" with Patrick O'Donnell
2024-05-09 18:00 - 19:00 | American Civil War Museum – Appomattox, 159 Horseshoe Rd, Appomattox, Virginia, 24522, United States
The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations

The Civil War is famously known for the huge battles that defined it such as Gettysburg, Antietam, and Shiloh. However, bestselling author Patrick K. O’Donnell reveals in his book The Unvanquished that there was a crucial shadow war that took place amid and away from the major battlefields, which was in many ways just as consequential to the conflict’s outcome. At the center of this groundbreaking narrative is the remarkable story of Lincoln’s special forces – the Jessie Scouts – told in its entirety for the first time.

Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically acclaimed military historian and an expert on elite units. The author of thirteen books, including The Indispensables, The Unknowns, and Washington’s Immortals, he is the recipient of numerous national awards. O’Donnell served as a combat historian in a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and is a professional speaker on America’s conflicts, espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks’ award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers and for documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Discovery.

ALL SALES ARE FINAL. TICKETS AND REGISTRATIONS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE UNLESS THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSEUM CANCELS AN EVENT.

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'The Impending Crisis' Exhibition Opening
2024-04-27 10:00 - 17:00 | ACWM – Historic Tredegar, 480 Tredegar St., Richmond, Virginia, 23219, United States
The American Civil War Museum will launch a major exhibition at ACWM-Tredegar in Richmond, Virginia, on April 27th, 2024. Titled The Impending Crisis, this exhibit will delve into the events, individuals, and topics that led to the division of the United States on the verge of civil war.

The Impending Crisis exhibit takes visitors on a journey through differing national viewpoints on faith, politics, and patriotism in the years leading up to the Civil War. While touring the exhibit, visitors meet both well-known and lesser-known people, hearing their words, seeing the families and communities they built, and the extreme hardships they suffered. Visitors gain a better understanding of what was truly at stake during this pivotal time in the nation’s history, and how the actions to engage in a civil war remade America.

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"Frederick Douglass and the Problem of American Democracy" with David Blight￼
2024-04-25 18:30 - 19:30 | ACWM – Historic Tredegar, 480 Tredegar St., Richmond, Virginia, 23219, United States
This is an IN-PERSON event at ACWM-Tredegar

ACWM members, we would like to invite you to an exclusive reception at 5:30 pm.

Join us as David Blight sheds light on the extraordinary life of Frederick Douglass, offering a fresh perspective on his enduring impact on American society. Douglass’s journey is one of courage and resilience, as he escaped slavery and became a major literary figure and advocate for political abolitionism. David Blight’s groundbreaking biography unveils the untold story of Douglass’s complex personal life and intellectual prowess, cementing his legacy as a towering figure in American history. Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to explore the life and legacy of one of America’s greatest icons, as told by one of today’s foremost historians.

David W. Blight is Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom; American: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era; Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory; and annotated editions of Douglass’s first two autobiographies. He has worked on Douglass for much of his professional life and has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, among others. Blight has always been a teacher first. At the beginning of his career, he spent seven years as a high school history teacher in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Blight maintains a website, including information about public lectures, books, articles, and interviews at www.davidwblight.com/

In this “cinematic and deeply engaging” (The New York Times Book Review) biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers. “Absorbing and even moving…a brilliant book that speaks to our own time as well as Douglass’s” (The Wall Street Journal), Blight’s biography tells the fascinating story of Douglass’s two marriages and his complex extended family. “David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass…a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the nineteenth century” (The Boston Globe).

Purchase Book

Thank you for supporting our mission by purchasing through our online store. Your contribution enables us to continue providing engaging events and experiences.

All sales are final. Tickets and registrations are non-refundable unless the American Civil War Museum cancels an event.

ACWM members, we would like to invite you to an exclusive reception at 5:30 pm.

Register on Eventbrite

Join us for our Spring Lecture Series as we delve into the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War, from abolition through Reconstruction, as part of our extensive initiative “The Civil War & Remaking America” and prepare to open our newest exhibition, The Impending Crisis in Spring 2024!
