Archivists work to fill gaps in Civil War history
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HUMBOLDT, Tenn. — Years of searching across the state of Tennessee for Civil War artifacts is coming to a close this summer to end the commemoration of the war’s 150th anniversary. Dianna Bradbury has been gathering Civil War heirlooms from her family’s history to be digitally stored in Tennessee’s public record. “I brought the gun he carried when he went off to join the militia,” Bradbury said. Whether it is a gun carried by a soldier or a button from a uniform, archivists said the real work begins when they get back home, “… doing all the straightening, cropping, editing,” archivist and photographer Will Thomas said. This is all in an effort to get these photographs and scans posted to the Tennessee library’s website. “Folks are contributing bits and pieces to an overall bigger puzzle, filling in gaps about the Civil War that perhaps had been lost,” Myers Brown, the archivist overseeing the project, said. It takes about four or five minutes just to scan one page of history, and archivists say it is well worth the effort. “We get to see a lot of things that are in personal hands that a lot of people don’t get to see, so it’s really exciting to be able to digitize those items and make them available online where the public can use them for research,” archivist Lori Lockhart said. It is something Bradberry said her family will always hold on to. “It’s something that exists from that long ago that somebody in our family used, and it’s just fascinating to me,” Bradberry said. Participants say the best thing about this project is that family members get to keep their heirlooms after they have been scanned or photographed. This tour by the Tennessee Library and Archives will end in the next few months.
