Celebrating South Jersey’s Role in the Civil War

The Cape May Film Society is proud to announce that it is the recipient of a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, allowing Executive Director Tom Sims to create three admission-free panel discussions on the topic of “The South Jersey Experience: Civil War Biographies.”
These discussions, hosted in three counties on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. will take place at the Burlington County Historical Society, 451 High St. in Burlington City on Jan. 28, the Salem Historical Society, 79 Market St. in Salem on February 25, and at the Cape May Historical Society Museum, 504 Rt. 9 North, Cape May Court House on March 25.
Jim Stephens, Deputy Director for Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, is the moderator for the three discussions.
“One of the first issues we’ll look at is dispelling the myth that Southern New Jersey sympathized with the Confederates during the Civil War,” said Stephens. “The southern part of this state was very much in favor of Lincoln and the war effort in general.
Some would even argue there was more support down here than there was in the northern part of the state.”
Joining Stephens will be Joe Bilby, Assistant Curator for the National Guard Militia Museum of NJ and editor of the book, “New Jersey Goes to War” which details some of Southern New Jersey’s great war heroes.
According to Bilby’s book, “As a result of the large numbers of casualties at the battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the military requested civilian medical assistance. [Salem County’s Cornelia Hancock] arrived at Gettysburg two days after the battle and without any official support or supplies, she helped wherever she could. Despite her innate dislike of alcohol, she dispensed with scruples and began to serve what would become a trademark ‘punch’ of condensed milk laced with whiskey.”
“One of the other great stories and personalities of the war is Cape May’s Captain Henry Sawyer,” says Gayle Stahlhuth, Artistic Director of the East Lynne Theater Company and another panelist.
Stahlhuth wrote a play about Sawyer’s time as a prisoner of war and his ultimate release as a way for Cape May school students, who first performed the play, to better understand their own history.
The panel discussions will also be accompanied by a selection of period songs performed by Barry Tischler, who specializes in acoustic performances of historical songs. The entire presentation will be filmed for a new educational DVD that will be distributed to schools, libraries, and historical societies throughout Southern New Jersey.
For more information about this program, contact the Cape May Film Society at 609-884-6700 or visit: www.capemayfilm.org.