Foundation Blog

Many thanks to those of you that made it down to the Museum for David Blight’s lecture on Friday afternoon. Despite some bad intel that resulted in a premature cancellation that was later rescinded, nearly five dozen loyal patrons showed up. Blight delivered a fantastic lecture on his new book,  A Slave No More. Focusing on the narratives of two escaped slaves - one from Virginia in 1862, one from Alabama in 1864 - Blight tells the story of how each of these men rose from the cruel chains of slavery to middle class status in the North in the years following the Civil War. Even more remarkable is that that Blight found these narratives, two of only about 40 that still exist, and was able to trace back the men and women listed in the text, from Civil War soldiers that assisted them to the slave traders that bought and sold them. The stat that just blew me away was that the Richmond slave trader mentioned in the text made, on average, $19,000 per week in the slave trade in 1859, with a daily high of $95,000! In today’s dollars, the total worth of all slaves in the South would be close to $80 billion!

Many thanks to Dr. Blight for speaking at the Veterans Museum and we all hope that can make a return trip sometime in the future.

Don’t forget to stop in for Joseph Glatthaar’s lecture on Tuesday evening!

WISCONSIN IN THE CIVIL WAR

REGIMENTAL BRACKETOLOGY – THE FINAL FOUR!

As promised, the staff of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum will finally answer this very difficult question: What is the “best” Wisconsin Civil War regiment? This, of course, is a loaded question guaranteed to spark a lot of heated debate. While everyone has their own personal opinion, we will use both objective (quanitifed data) and subjective (anecdotal evidence) factors to come our conclusion.

Instead of arbitrarily deciding the best, we decided to pit the regiments against one another in a 32-regiment, NCAA basketball tournament-style, single elimination bracket. See the attached bracket for what happened in the first few rounds. For the game-by-game breakdowns, look back at the blog entries from last summer or check out the entire bracket at: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=225774

The Process:
The philosophy behind this endeavor, to quote Lt. Col. William F. Fox, is the following:
“Where the musketry was the hottest, the dead lay the thickest.” (122)
Fox, author of Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865, believed that the proper way to judge the overall strength of a Civil War regiment is to look at the number of losses, as well as the percentages of casualties within a given unit. These units encountered some of the hardest fighting of the entire war. This is not a statement on how well they fought or their bravery.

Using two factors Fox lays out in his treatise - the Number Killed or Died of Wounds (KDW) and the Percentage Killed or Died of Wounds, Maximum Percentages of Enrollment (KDWMPE) - and two additional factors created by WVM staff, we now present the REGIMENTAL POWER INDEX (RPI). The RPI will be used to select and seed the 32 regiments participating in the tournament, and as one of many factors used to determine the winners in each match-up.
REGIMENTAL POWER INDEX FORMULA
35% Number Killed or Died of Wounds (KDW)*
35% Percentage Killed or Died of Wounds, Max Percentage of Enrollment (KDWMPE)*
20% Number of months in service (MIS)**
10% Percentage Died of Disease (PDD)***

Examples:
7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment
KDW: 281 (#1); 1 x 0.35 = 0.35
KDWMPE: 17.2% (#3); 3 x 0.35 = 1.05
MIS: 46 months (tied, #7); 7 x 0.20 = 1.40
PDD: 130 (#23); 23 x 0.10 = 2.30
TOTAL: 5.10
SEED: #1

17th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment
KDW: 41 (#32); 32 x 0.35 = 11.20
KDWMPE: 2.45% (#29); 29 x 0.35 = 10.15
MIS: 40 months (tied, #15); 15 x 0.20 - 3.00
PDD: 228 (#12); 12 x 0.10 = 1.20
TOTAL: 25.55
SEED: #30

*Information pulled from:
Fox, William F. Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865, 4th Ed. Albany, N.Y.: Joseph A. McDonough, 1898.
Quiner, E.B. The Military History of Wisconsin in the War for the Union. Chicago: Clarke & Company Publishers, 1866.
Maximum enrollment numbers for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 16th, 26th, 36th, and 37th Volunteer Infantry Regiments pulled from Fox; all other maximum enrollments come from Quiner (published maximum numbers minus veteran re-enlistment numbers, when available; Fox seemingly did not include re-enlistments - or regimental bands - in his tallies).
**Time calculated from muster in to muster out; ranked by number of months in service. There are ties - each tied unit receives ranking points.
***Disease numbers varied greatly by source. Because of inconsistency, the PDD is only 10% of the RPI. http://www.secondwi.com/wisconsininthecivilwar/wisconsi.htm

When we ceased this project late last summer, we were left with an incredible elite eight regiments. Frankly, time got away from us and we just haven’t found any spare moments to go back and finish. The matchups at that point were:
(1) 7th IR v. (8) 1st IR
(4) 3rd IR v. (5) 2nd IR
(3) 6th IR v. (6) 26th IR
(2) 5th IR v. (10) 21st IR
After some internal discussions and occasional fisticuffs, we settled on these four regiments for the FINAL FOUR!

THE CONTENDERS!

Matchup #1:
(1) 7th Volunteer Infantry Regiment v. (5) 2nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment

The tale of the tape:
7th IR
KDW: 1, KDWMPE: 3, MIS: 7, PDD: 23; Iron Brigade; member of Fox’s “Fighting 300″; 281 KDW is #6 nationally of all units; fought in all campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

2nd IR
KDW: 3, KDWMPE: 1, MIS: 22, PDD: 30; Iron Brigade; greatest KDWMPE of any unit nationally (19.7%); participated in all battles for the Army of the Potomac; one of Fox’s “Fighting 300 Regiments”

Matchup #2:
(2) 5th Volunteer Infantry Regiment v. (6) 26th Volunteer Infantry Regiment

The tale of the tape:
5th IR
KDW: 4, KDWMPE: 7, MIS; 2, PDD: 26; one of Fox’s “Fighting 300 Regiments”; Peninsular Campaign under George McClellan; Centerville VA; Antietam; Gettysburg, Wilderness, Petersburg, Shenandoah Valley, Richmond, Appomattox; part of the famous Sixth Corps

26th IR
KDW: 5, KDWMPE: 2, MIS; 22, PDD: 27; one of Fox’s “Fighting 300 Regiments”; 17.2% KDWMPE is 5th nationally; Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, March to the Sea, Carolinas Campaign

I will be breaking down the 2nd IR v. 7th IR matchup, while guest bracketologist Russ Horton will tackle the 5th IR v. 26th IR battle. The finals will be a spirited debate between the two of us.

Check www.wvmfoundation.com/blog for updates and the eventual winner!

Only a few days left to check out “In the Belly of the Dragon: Life and Death in I Corps,” so be sure to stop by the museum. Components of the exhibit appear to be headed to our satellite institution, the Wisconsin National Guard Museum at Volk Field, about 75 miles north of Madison in Camp Douglas. The whole show is not going to make it up there, but a good part of it will. More on the installation and the scheduled opening when we find out what it might be!

While “Dragon” is coming down, “An Instinct for Light: The Photography of Robert Ellison” will remain on display until June 15, 2008. A new Vietnam-themed traveling show will debut in the Changing Exhibits Gallery on July 1 - more on this in the coming weeks - and an Iraq/Afghanistan photography exhibit will open in early September and run through the end of November. Following that show, we will begin installing our new semi-permanent show, “Faces in the Sand,” which opens in mid-February 2009. We have begun developing the narrative for the show, collecting items from recently returned vets, and setting up oral histories for the show, so things are progressing nicely.

Go Badgers!

As many of you know, our wonderful Vietnam exhibit, “In the Belly of the Dragon: Life and Death in I Corps” closes on March 31. I hope that you can make it in for the first or last time before then. All of us are going to miss having the show in the galleries - it is a living testament to the men and women that served during the Vietnam War and it has provided many vets a chance to reconnect with one another and find some closure to a trying time in their lives. As long as our visitors continue to support our Vietnam-themed exhibits and programs, we will keep doing them, so be on the lookout for more in the near future.

One Vietnam program already scheduled is “Echoes from Vietnam - The Literature of War” featuring author Alfredo Vea (Gods Go Begging) and poet W.D. Ehrhart. Both men served in the Vietnam War and are brilliant writers. We have been looking foward to this event all winter and I think it will prove to be fantastic. The program begins at 7pm; both writers will read from their respective works and then will answer audience questions. The Veterans Museum is proud to present this event in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Integrated Liberal Studies Program.

One final Vietnam-related tidbit…
Wisconsin Public Television has begun filming for its new documentary seriers, “Wisconsin Vietnam Stories,” which will hit the airwaves (in HD!) in early 2010. They have completed a handful of interviews to this point and have placed a sneak preview of the program on You Tube. Please pass this link along to anyone you think would be interested. The stories told in this 2:30 segment are incredibly moving.

Here is the link: Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories Sneak Preview

 In case you were wondering, my Final Four is North Carolina, WISCONSIN, UCLA, and Memphis, with Carolina knocking off UCLA in the final game. I will be happy if UW just  makes through the first weekend. Good luck Badgers!

A very belated Happy New Year to all of you! So far, 2008 has been quite busy for us here at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. We have already hosted two programs and opened a new photography exhibit, “An Instinct for Light: The Photography of Robert J. Ellison.” It is really a striking exhibit, featuring 16 large-format, b&w and color images from Ellison’s vast collection held here at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. But, don’t just take my word for it, please click the link the below and read The Capital Times’ review of the exhibit.

http://www.madison.com/tct/entertainment/272060

As noted in the review, it is fitting that Ellison’s photos hang during Black History Month. A young white college student, Ellison made a name for himself as a photojournalist on the Civil Rights trail, shooting images for Ebony and Jet magazines on the 1965 Selma March and the 1966 “March Against Fear” in Mississippi. Ellison’s images remain some of the most captivating from that time - Stokley Carmichael delivering his “Black Power” speech in Greenwood, Mississippi on June 17, 1966; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. walking with fellow demonstrators and delivering speeches and sermons; celebrities as diverse as Burt Lancaster and Sammy Davis, Jr. supporting the cause; and dozens of photographs of crowds, protestors, police action, and segregationists, all capturing the emotion, drama, and conflict of the era.

Ellison became a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement after hearing Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream Speech” in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963. After the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1964, Ellison worked to register black voters in rural areas near the University of Florida campus. He encouraged his mother, Miriam Eaton, to become involved with the NAACP and the fair housing movement in Milwaukee during the late 1960s. Ellison continued his work with African Americans after he traveled to Vietnam in 1966, shooting an entire article in Time magazine on the black experience in Vietnam. He even rode in the backseat of an F-4 Phantom jet with one of the few black pilots during the war, Lt. Col. Tim Boddie.

There is no telling what Robert Ellison would have accomplished had he not been killed at Khe Sanh in March 1968 at the age of 23. In his letters home to mother, he oftentimes talked of joining the Army and learning how to fly helicopters. Ever the daredevil, he always wanted to be where the action was, so it is likely he would have found himself covering the war until the bitter end. Other photographers from the era, most notably Larry Burrows and Henri Huet, met their demise after Ellison, but in the same way - always after a story and the best available shot. 

“An Instinct For Light” will remain on display until June 15, 2008.

To check out some of Robert Ellison’s Vietnam images, click here.

Hello All,
Well, 2007 is almost over and it was quite a year for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. Our attendance and outreach surpassed 100,000 this year; our program attendance broke all records, with over 3,800 people attending events here at the Museum and elsewhere; and, our online presence grew exponentially with the launch of our new Foundation website (which you are looking at currently) and the streaming of our 7-7-7 programs on Wisconsin Eye (www.wiseye.org).

2008 looks to be a great year as well. We plan on curating no fewer than three photo exhibitions this year, including the Robert Ellison photography retrospective, “An Instinct For Light,” which opens on February 5. Our program schedule is starting to fill up as well, so check out the MUSEUM PROGRAMS tab on the site. We will be covering Vietnam and the Cold War in February and March. On March 31, “In the Belly of the Dragon: Life and Death in I Corps” will close - we cannot believe its run is almost over! Come April and May, look for a bevy of programs on the Civil War, including two organic programs on our new cannon and our vast collection of regimental battle flags. I know I have said this before, but I PROMISE to finish up the Civil War Bracketology so we can know once and for all who the best Wisconsin Civil War regiment was.

Thanks to all of you who attended a program or three, visited the museum, visited the website, or did anything remotely associated with the Wisconsin Veterans Museum or even military history as a whole. We truly enjoy organizing programs for you to attend, and we hope make our events web accessible to those of you that cannot make it to Madison very soon. There are a lot of exciting things happening right now, so stay tuned!

As we move through this abnormally temperate fall season, one might think the program schedule would contract in size. In reality, we have added three more events to round out the season. All events will be held in the 2nd Floor Education Center at 30 W. Mifflin and are free to attend. Check out the MUSEUM PROGRAMS link on the tool bar - here is the list:

Tuesday, November 6 - 7pm - “Lessons Learned? Reflections on the 9/11 Commission” with Warren Bass, Deputy Editor, Outlook (Washington Post)

Friday, November 30 - Noon - “A Field Report from Afghanistan: Suicide Bombers in the Forgotten War” with Brian Glyn Williams, Professor of History, UMass- Dartmouth

Thursday, December 6 - 7pm - “Echoes From Vietnam: (Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay) with Craig Werner, Doug Bradley, Charles Hughes, and Ari Eisenberg, UW-Madison

The first two events listed are straight lecture/discussions, but the December 6th event is a special one. December 10, 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the life soul superstar Otis Redding. Redding and several members of his backing band, the Bar-Kays, died when their plane crashed into Lake Monona - only trumpeter Ben Cauley survived. The Veterans Museum felt it was important to honor Redding’s contribution to the canon of music during the Vietnam era. Redding’s posthumous hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” resonated with men and women serving in Vietnam with its message about longing for home. UW-Madison Professor Craig Werner and Vietnam veteran Doug Bradley will discuss the song within the context of Vietnam and the veteran experience. Both Craig and Doug are members of the Deadly Writers Patrol writing collective. Prior to their lecture, local singing duo, Radio Sweetheart, will honor us with acoustic versions of three of Redding’s biggest songs. Radio Sweetheart features Charles Hughes (guitar/vocals) and Ari Eisenberg (vocals), both of whom are Ph.D. candidates in the UW-Madison Department of History.

In my previous post, I discussed the arrival of our new Civil War cannon and the upcoming pets exhibit. The pets exhibit is now hanging adjacent to the Museum store and features striking images of Old Abe, Bruin the Bear, Leaky the Lion, and Beertender the Dog, all of whom accompanied Wisconsin soldiers during times of crisis. The exhibit has been getting positive reviews from visitors, and it really looks great on the wall. The show will remain up until late January, when it is replaced by “An Instinct for Light: The Life and Photography of Robert Ellison.”

With regards to the cannon, we are currently planning an event for sometime in early 2008 that will discuss the cannon’s provenance and the process of moving it to the museum. It was quite an operation! Check the website often for updates.

Thanks to those of you who have attended our fall events!

Three things to update you all on today.

1. Today, we took delivery of a cannon that has resided at the GAR Memorial Park at Camp Randall for many decades. Captured by the 14th Wisconsin on April 7, 1862 at Pittsburg Landing, the cannon will now permanently reside in our climate controlled Civil War gallery. Look for a full history on the cannon and a detailed description of how we - with great assistance from the UW-Madison Machine Shop - moved and unplugged the cannon in the near future.

2. Next week, look for a new exhibit called “Let Slip the Mascots of War: Pets in the Military from the Civil War through Iraq.” Using photographs from the WVM Archives, we have put together a very interesting show featuring such notable “pets” as Old Abe the war eagle, Bruin the Bear (12th Wisconsin during the Civil War), Leaky the Lion (32nd Division during the Berlin Crisis), and many others. The photos are very cool and will appeal to anyone who loves animals. Stop by sometime next week and check it out!

3. Well, there is more than one lecture at hand - three of them in the next week, actually. In case you are not on our mailing list or you do not regularly check our websites, here they are:
10.12.07 - Noon - “60 Y ears of AFS in Wisconsin” with Dick Sinclair, WWII ambulance driver
10.13.07 - Noon - “The Ghost Mountain Boys” with author James Campbell, part of the 2007 Wisconsin Book Festival
10.17.07 - 7pm - “The Global War on Terror: A Status Report” with Daniel Benjamin, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute
Each of these events should be fantastic - hope to see you there!

After a much longer than expected hiatus, we are back and should be posting to the blog regularly throughout the fall.

CIVIL WAR BRACKETOLOGY
For the six or seven of you that have been following along with this project, we apologize for not keeping up with it. We have the bracket finished and we know the outcome, but between planning events and writing exhibit text, we have been at a loss for time. Look for a finished bracket, a champion, and a complete breakdown of the proceedings in the coming weeks. To refresh your memory, here is the bracket to this point: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=225774

FALL PROGRAMS:
Tomorrow night, September 20th, is the official kickoff for our fall program series. We are very excited about our docket of speakers this season. Please join us for as many of the programs as you can. If you are unable to attend, check back here for updates on possible streaming audio and video.

Third Down and a War to Go
Thursday, September 20, 2007 – 7:00 p.m.
Terry Frei, author
Lecture and book signing
In 1942, there were not many football teams better than the Wisconsin Badgers. The team saw great success, but each Badger knew that military service awaited them. Most of team saw action during World War II; all served bravely, but not all made it home. Frei will discuss this incredible team, and the new research and updates included in the revised paperback edition of the book, which features a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss.

Private Soldiers: A Year in Iraq with a National Guard Unit
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 – 7:00 p.m.
With author Capt. Benjamin Buchholz, and photographers SSgt. Joseph Streeter and Lt. Nathan Olson
Panel discussion and book signing
Written and photographed by three Wisconsin soldiers, this new book chronicles the 2-127 Infantry Battalion’s year long deployment to Iraq. Featuring interviews with soldiers and Iraqi civilians, Private Soldiers provides a first-hand account of war and honors the state’s participants in the Iraq War. All three battalion members will discuss their service and the writing process, and will answer audience questions.

With the start of school, the number of events here at the Museum and elsewhere increases dramatically. Next week, there are three very cool events - two film showing and a lecture - that I hope some of you can attend.

The War - A Film by Ken Burns
Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - 7pm
Theater, Monona Terrace & Convention Center, 1 John Nolen Drive, Madison
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Veterans Museum, along with Wisconsin Public Television and the Monona Terrace, are pleased to present this special one-hour preview of the new PBS World War II documentary. We watched this film at lunch the other day and it was very moving and thought-provoking. Burns masterfully weaves together the stories from the homefront with those from the frontlines in the Pacific and Europe. Highly recommended. Seating is limited and is first come, first served, so please arrive early. Representatives from the National Archives will be on hand to assist veterans and their family members in ordering military records from their St. Louis offices. Reps from the Veterans Museum and Wisconsin Public Television will also be present.

Now, from our friends at the Center for Russian, Eastern Europe, and Central Asian Studies on the UW-Madison campus…

“Khrushchev, the Man and His Era”
Thursday, September 6, 2007 - 4pm to 5:15pm
Room 325 - Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., on the UW-Madison campus
FREE an Open to the public

Remembered by many as the Soviet leader who brandished his shoe at the United Nations, Khrushchev was in fact one of the most complex, colorful and important political figures of the 20th century. Complicit in Stalinist crimes, he attempted to de-Stalinize the USSR. His daring attempt to reform Communism prepared the way for its eventual collapse. His awkward efforts to ease the cold war triggered its most dangerous crises in Berlin and Cuba. William Taubman, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Khrushchev, will analyze the Soviet leader’s personality, and show how it helps to explain his role in unmasking Stalin, and in sparking the Berlin and Cuban crises.

William Taubman, Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, is the author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, published by W. W. Norton in March 2003. Khrushchev was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for biography. It also received the 2004 National Book Critics Award for biography, the Wayne S. Vucinich Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Policy.

For more information, see: http://www.creeca.wisc.edu

Finally, for those of you in the Milwaukee area, a special program for Hispanic Heritage Month…

The Borinqueneers
Presented by the Roberto Hernandez Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Monday, September 17, 2007 - 7pm
Fireside Lounge at the Union Theater (1st Floor), 2200 E. Kenwood Boulevard, Milwaukee
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The first major documentary to chronicle the never-before-told story of the Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment, the only all-Hispanic unit in the history of the U.S. Army. Narrated by Hector Elizondo, the documentary explores the fascinating stories of courage, triumph and struggle of the men of the 65th through rare archival materials and compelling interviews with veterans, commanding officers, and historians.

For additional information, see: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Acad_Aff/RHC/