LEARN MORE
Resources for exploring Civil War reenacting as living history, Ambrose Bierce, and historical filmmaking
These selected resources are starting points for readers who want to learn more about Civil War reenacting and living history, Black Union soldiers and the United States Colored Troops, Ambrose Bierce, battlefields and museums, historical filmmaking, and the Civil War-era law of war. Each listing explains what the reader can find there and why it may be useful.
The companion book, Killed at Resaca on the Big Screen, contains much more. Its current draft includes separate appendices on getting started in Civil War reenacting; the annual Battle of Resaca reenactment; United States Colored Troops; USCT battlefields, training sites, memorials, and museums; Civil War battlefields; museums and archives; Ambrose Bierce; and Civil War films and historical filmmaking.
A comprehensive companion resource
For beginning filmmakers, new reenactors and living historians, students, teachers, researchers, and other readers, Killed at Resaca on the Big Screen expands substantially on the material introduced here. Its draft Table of Contents and extensive appendices lead readers to beginner guides, research pathways, United States Colored Troops sites, battlefields and museums, Ambrose Bierce, the Civil War-era law of war, and historical-filmmaking resources.
Resource categories
Choose a subject to move directly to that section.
Start Civil War reenacting
Learn about Black Union soldiers
Read Ambrose Bierce
Visit Civil War battlefields and museums
Explore living history, craft, archives, and public history
Historical filmmaking for beginners
Read the Civil War-era law of war
Start Civil War reenacting
Find a reputable unit before buying a complete uniform. Attend an event as a visitor. Ask what kind of soldier or civilian the unit portrays, which branch and regiment it represents, what its safety rules require, and what clothing or equipment members can lend to a newcomer.
Georgia Division Reenactors Association — units, branches, events, and joining informationUse it to locate reenacting organizations, compare units, and learn how newcomers can make contact before buying equipment.
Annual Battle of Resaca Reenactment — Resaca, GeorgiaUse it to learn about a major recurring reenactment connected directly to the historical Battle of Resaca.
Camp William Penn / United States Colored Troops living-history resourcesUse it to explore a major USCT training site and living-history resources centered on Black Union soldiers.
Learn about Black Union soldiers
Start with primary sources and institutions devoted to the men who served in the United States Colored Troops. Then visit training sites, memorials, battlefields, museums, and living-history programs.
National Archives — Black Soldiers in the Civil WarUse it for primary-source-based background on Black soldiers, military service, emancipation, and federal records.
African American Civil War Memorial MuseumUse it to learn about Black Civil War military service, individual soldiers, emancipation, citizenship, and public memory.
Camp William Penn and USCT resourcesUse it to connect Black military history with a specific training site, reenacting, and public history.
Read Ambrose Bierce
Read the stories before reading plot summaries. Begin with “Killed at Resaca” and then explore Bierce’s other Civil War fiction. For literary criticism, use a university library or scholarly database to find work by Bierce scholars such as S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Donald T. Blume.
Project Gutenberg — free Ambrose Bierce textsUse it to read Bierce’s work directly, including Civil War fiction, before relying on summaries or commentary.
National Park Service — three Bierce Civil War stories, including “Killed at Resaca”Use it to read “Killed at Resaca” together with other Bierce war stories in a Civil War public-history setting.
University of Cincinnati — Ambrose Bierce Letters ProjectUse it to explore Bierce through letters and archival material rather than fiction alone.
Ambrose Bierce scholarship — selected bibliography and research leadsUse it to identify literary scholarship and additional sources for readers who want to go beyond the stories themselves.
Explore living history, craft, archives, and public history
Look beyond battlefield action. Living history can include clothing, music, cooking, tools, craft, storytelling, archives, community memory, and public education.
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural HeritageUse it to explore living traditions, community-based cultural documentation, and approaches to public presentation of culture and history.
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and CollectionsUse it to see how photographs, recordings, interviews, and field documentation can be preserved and organized for future research.
Visit Civil War battlefields and museums
Use battlefield visits to connect maps and written history with terrain. Museums add artifacts, documents, photographs, uniforms, weapons, and civilian stories that a battlefield alone cannot provide.
American Battlefield Trust — battlefield travel and preservationUse it for battle maps, campaign histories, battlefield preservation, and planning visits to Civil War sites.
National Park Service — Civil War places and resourcesUse it to locate federally managed Civil War sites and reliable public-history material about the war.
Historical filmmaking for beginners
Study how directors use reenactors, locations, costumes, camera placement, sound, effects, editing, and historical advice. Compare a finished film with interviews in which filmmakers explain the decisions behind it.
History Boy — Jacob L. T. Bates’s historical-filmmaking channelUse it to see Jacob’s earlier historical-film work and behind-the-scenes material, including videos connected with Killed at Resaca.
Brad Graham / Historical Films — The Antietam Effect and the Antietam filmUse it to examine historical filmmaking through the work of a filmmaker who has mentored Jacob L. T. Bates.
Ron Maxwell interview — historical filmmaking and the Civil WarUse it to hear a major Civil War filmmaker discuss the practical and interpretive problems of putting history on screen.
Ron Maxwell Q&A — making GettysburgUse it for additional perspective on directing a large Civil War production and working with historical subject matter.
Ron Maxwell on using Civil War reenactors in GettysburgUse it to understand why experienced reenactors can be indispensable to Civil War filmmaking.
Smithsonian — behind the scenes on the set of GettysburgUse it for a participant’s account of how a major Civil War film used people, objects, and locations to create the historical world seen on screen.
Read the Civil War-era law of war
Begin with General Orders No. 100, often called the Lieber Code. Then compare the Civil War-era rules with later Hague and Geneva law rather than assuming that modern rules applied unchanged in 1864.
General Orders No. 100 — Lieber CodeRead the 1863 text itself to see how the Union Army stated rules concerning military necessity, prisoners, civilians, property, retaliation, truces, and other wartime conduct.
National Archives — Emancipation ProclamationRead the primary document that changed the legal and military context of emancipation and Black enlistment during the war.
More in the book. The website deliberately does not reproduce the book’s complete research directories. The current Table of Contents places the extended resource material principally in Appendices VII–XIV, with additional primary documents and maps in earlier appendices.