Marietta Times:
Many of the same states that contributed troops, supplies and money to the Civil War aren't providing funding for exhibits, reenactments and events for the 150th anniversary of the conflict between the North and South, just a few months away.
Ohio is in that category, with no state funding allocated, but anniversary events will still go on, say local and state historians.
"For us this will truly be on a grassroots level, but I think we'll rise to the occasion," said Kim Schuette, communications and media relations manager for the Ohio Historical Society, which is helping coordinate events across the state. "It's a challenge, of course, in today's economy, but it's something we feel very strongly needs to be acknowledged. People often say the Civil War left scars, but it also left a legacy that influences our lives today."
Virginia and Pennsylvania have millions apprpriated for anniversary events, but many other states are in the same boat as Ohio.
The Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission Act, which would have established a national, federally funded committee to organize commemorative events, was introduced to Congress in 2009 and again last March, but was never passed.
Jackie Barton, director of education and outreach for the Ohio Historical Society, said if Ohio had provided funding it would have been used to help individual community activities.
Many areas across the state are planning events but will have to fund them on their own.
"We're providing support by helping to coordinate these and to get the word out, but if we had funding we would be able to give financial support and grants for these programs," Barton said. "Right now, communities are even having to pay us mileage if they want us to come there and we just don't have the staff and cash to be everywhere."
Several entities have helped plug that gap, with the Ohio Community Service Council awarding a grant to fund AmeriCorps volunteers to help communities plan events. American Electric Power has also given a grant and the Ohio Humanities Council is funding a traveling Civil War exhibit.
There is a special exhibit planned in Marietta, but it will take all of 2011 to raise funds and get it to the Campus Martius Museum, said museum historian Bill Reynolds.
The kickoff to the 150th anniversary is officially in April, since that's when the war's first shots were fired upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina in 1861, but celebrations are going on throughout 2011 and beyond.
It will be 2012 when an extensive Civil War anniversary exhibit, borrowed from a private collection in Dayton, opens in Marietta, but it will remain on display for at least three years, said Reynolds.
"It's the largest collection of local Civil War items I know of, and most, if not all of it, has never been seen by the public," he said.
The exhibit consists of several hundred pieces, including photos and personal objects that belonged to Civil War soldiers.
"The focus of the exhibit is going to be non-political, with a focus on the individuals," Reynolds said. "We had many local soldiers killed in the war, and this will include some of the community reaction at the time as well. Everybody here was on the edge of their seats, living in fear, for four years."
The museum currently displays only a small section of Civil War memorabilia.
Many Ohio towns, and the state as a whole, have more direct links to the war than most people realize, said Barton.
"Ohio sent as many soldiers off to war per capita as any other state ... the vast majority of communities saw men go off to war and women were left here running the crops and businesses," she said.
More than 50 Washington County-area soldiers died in Tennessee's Battle of Shiloh alone.
Some of the best-known people of that era had Ohio ties, including Gen. George Custer, who grew up in Ohio, and Harriett Beecher Stowe, who based her famous writings on her time in the state. Don Carlos Buell, the longtime highest-ranking officer of the western Army, was born in Lowell.
There were other ties as well, from the local Underground Railroad participation to Buckeye Furnace, the southeastern Ohio company that made most of the iron used in the war.
Anniversary events will begin in Ohio on April 10 at the Statehouse in Columbus, but there will be lasting projects that go beyond events as well, said Schuette.
That includes an AmeriCorps effort to digitize documents and preserve collections from that era for Ohio Memory, an online database.
"That's something that may not have been done in commemorations before," said Schuette. "It's not flashy, but in the end it's going to help historians and help save history."
Another long-term project is the marking of the 560-mile Morgan's Raid Heritage Trail through southern Ohio, including Meigs County. The trail marks the path Confederate soldiers made in 1863 when they came from Tennessee to cross enemy lines into Indiana and Ohio.
The raid, during which Confederate soldiers destroyed bridges, railroads and government stores, struck fear into Ohioans and led to the only Civil War military action in Ohio: The Battle of Buffington Island, where 750 of Confederate commander John Hunt Morgan's men were captured. The rest surrendered in northern Ohio.
Informational panels will be added to the trail, telling the story, by 2013.
Though there was little fighting in Ohio during the war, the upcoming milestone is a way to show how much impact there was, said Barton.
"We're also hoping this anniversary will help define Civil War history in a much broader way," she said. "Not just by the battles and military action but by the consequences. When you talk about democracy, freedom, race relations ... you're really looking at the Civil War being a pivotal point in American history."
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