Questions

Here's a list of questions that I'm asking as I dig through primary sources and post them to this blog.  Feel free to add your own questions at the bottom.

• Who were the soldiers who made up the 79th Pennsylvania?  Who influenced how they thought?  What did they value?  How did the war change them?  How did they affect the war?
• What was the landscape of social networks in mid-nineteenth century Lancaster?  How did they intersect in the 79th Pennsylvania?  How did they evolve before, during, and after the war?
• What transactions of goods, information, and ideas took place between the regiment and Lancaster while they were at war?  How did soldiers try to influence civilians?  How did civilians try to influence soldiers?
• How did the regiment's activities interact with major political controversies?
• How did the regiment's activities interact with major social transformation of the time, especially regarding race?  
• What shaped the regiment's identity?  How did it evolve?  How well or poorly did the regiment survive in terms of unit cohesion?
• What can we learn about how an army operates by looking at one regiment?  What roles did soldiers play besides infantryman?  What were the regiment's supply chain requirements?  How were they fulfilled?
• How did soldiers and civilians shape the way Lancasterians began to remember the war?
• How has that memory evolved since 1861 to what we know today?
• Why does the Civil War era continue to fascinate us?  What does that tell us about ourselves?

Dedication of Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Lancaster, 1874