About this item
Few regions of the United States boast as many historically significant sites as the mid-Atlantic. Travels through American History in the Mid-Atlantic brings to life sixteen easily accessible historical destinations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C., the Potomac Valley, and Virginia. Charles W. Mitchell walked these sites, interviewed historians and rangers, and read the letters and diaries of the men and women who witnessed―and at times made―history. He reveals in vivid prose the ways in which war, terrain, weather, and illness have shaped the American narrative. Each attraction, reenactment, and interactive exhibit in the book is described through the lens of the American experience, beginning in the colonial and revolutionary eras, continuing through the War of 1812, and ending with the Civil War.
About the Author
Charles W. Mitchell, a native Marylander, is an editor and travel writer in Baltimore who is descended from a Congressman, two Confederate officers and a cross-dressing pirate who appear in the pages of "Maryland Voices of the Civil War." Mitchell became intrigued years ago by the civilian experience of the Civil War. While the military dimension of the war had been (and continues to be) thoroughly examined, little had been written about the often devastating effects of the war on merchants, women, clergymen, slaves, children, farmers, etc. To tell the story of Maryland civilians, he spent 12 years in archives around the nation (the vast majority being in or near Maryland), examining letters, diaries, newspapers and other documents of the period. "Maryland Voices of the Civil War" relates the experiences of average Marylanders through their own words; Mitchell introduces each document with a brief headnote that gives some information about the writer, recipient or something mentioned in the document. The result is a richly detailed, prize-winning portrait of life in Maryland that illuminates the human complexities of the Civil War era. "Maryland Voices" won the 2007-2008 Founders Award for "outstanding scholarship on the Confederate era" from the Museum of the Confederacy.
