At the Carnegie Free Library, April marks a beginning and an end

April is often a month that has us looking forward. We start sprucing up our gardens and landscaping, and perhaps move some of our outdoor furniture out of storage, anticipating longer summer days and more time spent outside. We start thinking about cookouts and festivals, even if the ongoing pandemic threatens to curtail some events for another summer. Perhaps we think about picnics on the lawn at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall.

If you weren’t thinking about that, I hope that now you are.

For history enthusiasts — particularly those interested in the Civil War — April is also a month to look back. Many Civil War enthusiasts have a habit of reading topically around anniversaries of important wartime events. From 1861 to 1865, April is replete with some of the most recognizable events of the war: the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861; the Battle of Shiloh, Tenn., on April 6-7, 1862; Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865; and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln only five days later.

I would encourage anyone to stop by ACFL&MH to browse our outstanding collection of Civil War titles and grab a book on any one of these events. For a different take, I also suggest revisiting a classic book of our youth — “Across Five Aprils,” by Irene Hunt.

The veterans of the Captain Thomas Espy Post understood the significance of the month of April to Civil War history. In their meeting room and Memorial Hall on the second floor of ACFL&MH, they were surrounded by visible reminders of Aprils of their youth.

A framed print of the Battle of Shiloh in a handsome gold and black frame was donated by Thomas E. Morgan, a veteran of the 155th Pennsylvania Infantry. A framed copy of the New York Herald from April 15, 1865, announcing the assassination of their beloved president, hung on the wall. Relics collected from the battlefield at Appomattox Court House were enshrined in a corner display case, while a drum carried by Espy Post comrade Zacharias T. Benedick at the April 6, 1865, Battle of Sailors Creek, Va., sat atop another. We welcome you to stop by the Espy Post to view some of these treasures collected by the veterans. The Post is open to visitors every Saturday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

In 2021, April marks the 160th anniversary of the beginning of the war. The spark ignited by John Brown at Harpers Ferry in October 1859, the “irrepressible conflict” prophesied by Senator William Henry Seward, burst into flame at Fort Sumter. All thoughts of continued compromise or temporizing the institution of slavery ended as the first shell arced across Charleston Harbor.

To mark this anniversary, we will welcome National Park Service Historian Mark Maloy via Zoom on April 10 for our monthly Second Saturday Civil War Lecture Series.

A former park ranger at Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, Maloy will discuss the build-up to and the first battle of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, and how the surprisingly bloodless battle would inaugurate the bloodiest war in American history. He will also discuss how both the city of Charleston and Fort Sumter itself became visceral symbols of disunion and rebellion on which the Union forces would seek retribution for the remainder of the war. More information on this online event may be found online at www.CarnegieCarnegie.org.

So as we look forward this April to warmer weather and life returning to some sense of normalcy, I would encourage you to also look back to the five Aprils that splintered, restored and redefined our country forever.