Touring Civil War Battlefields With Technology

Let me preface this entry by saying I LOVE my iPod nano. It’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. I lift weights, run, hang out, drive my car, and even listen to Civil War Talk Radio on my iPod. I was obviously pleasantly surprised, then, to find podcasts of battlefield tours at Civil War Traveler. Civil War tour guide books are great, but they’re a lot more awkward to carry around than something like the nano, which fits easily even in a shirt pocket. In looking over the site, I see podcasts for the Crater at Petersburg, the Cornfield at Antietam, and of course the obligatory Gettysburg tour as well. It looks like National Park Service Rangers are giving the tours as well, so you’re not listening to any amateurs here! Speaking of Rangers, where are Ranger Mannie’s tours? 😉 You can subscribe to the Podcast archives RSS feed as well to get the latest podcasts as they are released. Has anyone tried any of these yet? I’ll have to keep them in mind when I finally get to Antietam and Gettysburg. I had planned to do that this summer, but a baby is on the way and plans have changed!


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5 responses to “Touring Civil War Battlefields With Technology”

  1. Kevin Avatar

    Hi Brett, — I don’t know if anyone else has pointed this out to you, but the amount of time it takes my computer to load your blog is excessive. Of course, it could be me, but I did recently read that the more links you have on the right hand side can present a problem. It’s one of the reason I significantly reduced my sidebars and placed them on the right since the page loads from left to right. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads-up and if it is just me than simply ignore this message.

  2. Jim Beeghley Avatar

    Brett,

    I totally agree and they are a great classroom use as well. A Ranger Mannie / Ranger Hoptak podcast of Antietam would be great. You can also check out the Virtual Antietam podcasts at VirtualAntietam.com

    Jim Beeghley
    Teaching the Civil War with Technology

  3. Bill Avatar
    Bill

    I have used the Cornfield & LRT podcast via Ipod at the battlefield and it is a great way to tour. I also loaded up the driving tours from Virtual Gettysburg and the Travel Brains series.
    Much easier to carry than the old Discman.

    Looking forward to the Devil’s Den podcast which is due on 6/15.

  4. admin Avatar

    Kevin,

    It’s not just you. I’ve noticed it too. The problem is Blogflux Mapstats. It’s been down for several days. I was trying to wait it out, but for now I’ve just commented out that portion of the code. Thanks for the heads up though. I’ve got an XP Desktop and a Vista laptop, but different computers can produce wildly different results.

    Brett

  5. admin Avatar

    Jim and Bill,

    Thanks for the comments and for the links. I’ll have to go check those out!

    Brett

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