Reconstruction Florida: Quick Links and References

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Surveying the Archaeology of Olustee

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Greetings, this week we are examining the history of the landscape prior to the battle and the 1994 archaeological survey of the Olustee Battlefield as it relates to the missing Union dead.  The origin of the survey is credited to the Olustee Battlefield Citizens Support Organization (CSO), with financing provided by the Bureau of Historica Preservation, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, along with early CSO support (Penton and Leigh III, 4). Daniel T. Penton, the Principal Investigator, stressed in the report that the survey was primarily focused on properly denominating the battlefield and assisting in the long-range interpretation of the site (Ibid). Initially, the report summarizes the location and physical setting of the battlefield. The principal survey area was south of Ocean Pond and east of the actual Town of Olustee (Ibid, 6). The geological range varies between "Central Highlands" elevations greater than 100 feet, mean sea level (msl),
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Introduction

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Greetings, my name is Jacob Finegan and I've studied history and archaeology at the University of Central Florida. My interest in history stems from a deep appreciation of our modern and digital world. The present will always be the best moment to study the past; new innovations in memory-making and in methodology are always being refined with increasingly accurate scientific instruments. Even for historians, whose sources are typically written documents, the conservation of place, landscape, and memory is taking a greater stake in the narrative than ever before. In the past, my research included Near Eastern empires, landscapes/border definitions, and frontier dynamics. Now, it revolves around the American memory of the Civil War, the Lost Cause, and modern questions regarding the role of the US Colored Troops (USCT), the Battle of Olustee, and their right to recognition.  My internship with the UCF Community Veterans History Project (UCF-VHP) will focus on the Battle of Olustee,
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The Internship Experience and Closing Thoughts

Greetings, this will be the last post of my internship.  If you have been a persistent reader please accept my personal thanks! In reality, I know that Dr. French and Dr. Gannon are the main absorbers of my written content.  While the process of assisting in guided research and critical writing is integral to the internship experience, one point of contention continues to remain even after this post. That is the conflict of history and memory. Perhaps the most enduring aspect of history is that it is interpreted  and that memory is owned  by the individual. Without gaslighting our veterans I encourage some reflection on the memory of recent wars/conflicts and how historians analyze and discuss past events. Recently, I talked to a man named Jerry at my place of work. Jerry is a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, one the United State joined nearly a decade after its inception. After enlisting "to fight the spread of communism," Jerry was shipped off to fight his way up the coast
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