Army Information Digest, Volume 16, Number 8, August 1961; A Special Issue Commemorating the Centennial of the U.S. Army in the Civil War 1861-1865

This is the Official Magazine of the Department of the Army. 128 pages. Illustrations (color on the covers). Maps. Occasional footnotes. Cover has some wear and soiling. Cover has some creasing. Some page corner curling. The mission of Army Information Digest was to keep personnel of the Army aware of trends and developments of professional concerns. The Digest was published under the supervision of the Army Chief of Information to provide timely and authoritative information on policies, plans, operations, and technical developments of the Department of the Army to the Active Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve. It also served as a vehicle for timely expression of the views of the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff and assisted in the achievement of information objectives of the Army. The American Civil War Centennial was the official United States commemoration of the American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States. Commemoration activities began in 1957, four years prior to the 100th anniversary of the commencement of hostilities, and ended in 1965 with the 100th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox. The public commemoration of the Civil War commenced with the passage, by Congress in 1957, of a public act creating the United States Civil War Centennial Commission. The Commission was asked to work with, and encourage, the forty-eight U.S. states (especially the states that were in existence at the time of the Civil War) to create state-level commissions to commemorate the war, and to some extent coordinate centennial activities by the private sector. The shadow of ongoing conflict over the Civil Rights Movement affected implementation of these commemorative activities. Neither Congress nor President Dwight D. Eisenhower were interested in a single, unified, national theme for the commemoration. To avoid this, the law creating the federal Commission reflected clear expectations that most of the implementation work of the commemoration would be carried out by the various state commissions. Almost all of the states did indeed set up centennial commissions. One major legacy of the Civil War Centennial was the creation of an infrastructure of Civil War reenactment. At least two major Civil War battlefields, Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas and Wilson's Creek National Battlefield in Missouri, were added to the roster of parklands administered by the National Park Service during the Centennial years. In addition, much of the current interpretive infrastructure of other major American Civil War battlefields dates back to planning decisions made in the early 1960s. This special issue includes contributions from major Civil War historians. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus.…