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Traveling into Week 6

Hey everyone!

This week we travel further up the Blackwater river with Short and his companions. He discusses how when they got to the river with the purpose of crossing it, they realized that it was not nearly deep enough to do so. They were still being pursued by the enemy, and so found themselves in quite a sticky situation when they realized that not only was the river itself hard to pass, but they also had to defend themselves from enemy fire. It was sort of a Moses and the Israelites moment as they were closed in by the river on one side and the enemy on the other. The journal says that one of their companies turned around and began firing on the enemy. Eventually they did cross on a pontoon and charged what the enemy had set up on the other side. Apparently most of that enemy had fled already. Some of the men left in the camp surrendered. Short's company recrossed and the enemy artillery immediately began firing upon them again. The pages that I transcribed this week ended with the sobering news that "our loss" was Lt. A.G. Barr of the 6th Massachusetts, who was instantly killed.

Our team also had a meeting this week which was fairly short and sweet, we gave updates and some people got new assignments. Sarah also spoke to me about the possibility of returning the journals to their owner soon and that I could maybe be a part of that when we present the transcriptions to him. I would greatly enjoy this and I feel it would be valuable because I love the transcriptions and can probably point out some little things that would be interesting and helpful for him to know. I look forward to possibly having that opportunity in the future.

As I move into this next week, I am traveling quite a bit and will have lots of car ride time to work on transcriptions, which I am really looking forward to. I am still loving this internship and feel that as we've reached the halfway point it has been such a valuable experience thus far and will continue to be for the rest of the semester.

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Marching into Week 5

Hey everyone!

This week was pretty straightforward and simple for me. I’ve done a lot of transcription and have just been enjoying reading what Jacob Short was writing about in the last few pages of his journal. These pages had a lot of logistics information, names of rivers, and different situations that he and his company had to navigate. For example, on page 17 he talks about how his company was the first to cross the “Blackwater river” and once they had done so, the "Swamps" on the other side made it incredibly difficult for them to transport artillery. He says that after realizing they wouldn’t be able to get through, they went back across the river, took their boats out of the water, and marched up towards Franklin. From previous journal pages, I believe that he is referring here to Franklin VA because there is a “Blackwater river” sort of nearby there. See the photo attached for details. 

A few pages later the “Swamp” is mentioned again, this time Jacob talks about how they were attacked by the enemy and pushed back through the dense undergrowth until they were eventually out of the “Swamp”. One really interesting thing is Short’s use of the letter “S’. He capitalizes it most of the time, even when in the middle of sentences and not referring to names or places. He also tends to cross out words a lot and sometimes use little carrots to insert words. Examples of those can be seen in the images below. 

It was also in this same page, that he commented how after being pushed out of the "Swamp" they marched 4 miles to "Church" and camped at about 4 pm. This was the first time the company had stopped to take time to rest since they left camp. They had been marching with no rest for 28 hours. As you can see a bit of in the image above, this was the 3rd time they had made such a march. I find this to be such a cool thing to think about. Cool may not be the right word, and certainly not for the men marching! But what these soldiers endured on a day to day basis was grueling and they made many sacrifices for their country!

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Week 4- CHDR, scanning, and transcription

Hey everyone!

I started this week with a visit to campus and got a tour of the CHDR room in Trevor Colbourn Hall in the history department. A few of us from the internship met up, along with Sarah and Jessie, our supervisors who have done so much for us and are so encouraging in our work. We walked around the space and learned about the different equipment and what it's used for. Then we had the opportunity to use the largest scanning machine which was a lot of fun. We scanned some postcards from Sarah's collection as practice and even made a bit of a fun collage project that will be either in this post or the next :). The scanner is kind of like a really large camera, with a spacious table and a camera that goes up and down to zoom in or out. I had a lot of fun learning about it especially because it is where Sarah scanned in the pages of the diary that I'm transcribing. I thought it was really cool to see the behind the scenes of the steps that came before me. She told me about how they had to use a book cradle and a piece of glass to make sure the pages were lying down and could be seen well. After that we headed over to practice with the portable scanners that the team will bring to history harvests. That was also some great experience to get as we hope to one day be able to participate in a history harvest. As a final part of the day we talked a bit about oral histories, and both Sarah and Jessie shared some stories from experiences they've had the in the past while conducting them. They also were really encouraging in telling us how important all of this will be for the future and to really focus on building these skills now so that one day they might help you get your foot in the door to a masters degree, another internship, etc.

As for my own time, transcription work on Volume 2 continues and I've just really enjoyed it this past week. The pages have been relatively simple and straightforward to read. It seems that there has been an attempted attack, a retreat possibly, and also some miscommunication between generals. Jacob has been very straight to the point in this week's transcription, without a ton of really strange or interesting tidbits. It was great to just knock out some good work while it was relatively simple.

Talk to ya'll next week!

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Week 3- Rivers, Cities, and Volume 2

Hey ya'll! So this week, as promised, I have begun transcribing Volume 2 of the Jacob Short diaries, and what an adventure it has already been! To begin with, there are marked difference between Volumes 2 and 3. So far, Volume 2 is on lined notebook paper, where 3 was just on plain paper. Volume 2 is also far more spidery and thin in terms of handwriting, all interesting things to take into account when thinking about what Short's life could have been like as a solider.

The Volume begins in September of 1863, talking about how Short's company had been relieved of the duty of Provost guard and were now moving on to a new town when they heard the sound of "heavy guns". It was at this point in the transcription that I was actually able to begin tracking his company's movement via google maps. The names of the rivers and towns that they encountered were searchable, with some research and a tiny bit of guesswork. I found all of this to be very exciting and really made the history come alive for me.

Another interesting bit of the transcription this week was some characters that were difficult to decipher and seemed to be layered on top of each other. This was an opportunity to learn a new transcription technique where you can identify and accurately transcribe "underwriting".

This week's team meeting was also helpful and interesting as all of the interns shared what they had been working on last week. There were a couple of really cool stories that came out of it but it was also helpful to hear everyone's questions related to the work and be able to grow in hearing the responses and solutions to those issues. We also discussed an in person workshop that we have the opportunity of attending this next week at UCF. We will meet in the history department to learn about digitization and get to have some hands on experience with the scanners there, as well as possibly some experience collecting and conducting oral histories. I am really looking forward to the workshop because I think it will add to my skillset and provide some somewhat behind the scenes experience with public history. I also am eager to meet my fellow interns whom I have thus far only had the pleasure of interacting with on Zoom calls.

Overall, it's been a wonderful and productive week and I am excited to continue with my project and the internship as a whole next week!

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Week 2- metadata sheets and meetings

Hello there! So this week was a lot of learning about oral history and public history as a whole. Our team meeting this week, which was long but very interesting and enjoyable, also included a workshop on metadata which I found to be quite fascinating. We learned how to take a metadata sheet and turn that into a spreadsheet in order to make artifacts more widely searchable and connect them to broader topics and events. I learned so much, and left the meeting with my first project assignment which I am very excited about! I have the pleasure of beginning to transcribe volume 2 of the Jacob Short Civil War diaries. I transcribed volume 3 this past spring semester and really enjoyed getting to know Jacob through his own words and experiences. I am thrilled to start work on volume 2 and read more wild stories from his time in the Union army. I can't wait to share those with this blog and anyone who reads it as I go along!

Since last week included a lot of traveling for me, this week gave me a chance to really hit the ground running and become more up to date and involved with the internship and my fellow interns. Meeting them all has truly been a pleasure, as they are all very kind and have a wide array of niche interests. I really appreciated hearing from all of them during the two team meetings we have had thus far and am grateful to be on an internship team with them. I've also loved getting to know my project manager and supervisors a bit more and can say for sure that I know they will instruct us well and make this a great experience.

As it relates to work done this week outside of meetings and trainings, I have not had much time for anything else. I plan to begin Volume 2 either this weekend or on Monday. For now, I've been getting used to navigating the Teams folders and other necessary information before I begin the project.

As a whole, this week has been one of much learning and time spent setting things up and getting things ready to go as I dive into my first project of the internship. I look forward to the weeks to come and can't wait to keep ya'll updated on all of the exciting things that unfold!

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Welcome week!

Hey everyone!

My name is Kaitlyn Aust and I am a Public History Intern at UCF. This blog will serve to document my experience in the internship and discuss things I am learning and projects I am working on. For this first post I am going to explain a bit about myself and what I hope to gain from the internship.

I am a native born Floridian and love all things history. I grew up in Orlando with my seven younger siblings and parents. I participated in competitive swimming for most of my childhood and enjoyed reading, hanging out with my family, and going on road trips. It was really during my freshman year of high school that I developed a love for all things American history and government. My special area of interest is the Founding Era of the US. I find this period to be fascinating, learning about the reasons behind the Revolutionary war and the documents upon which our nation is built. I have visited the first five president's homes and have a goal of continuing to go down the list and visit more in the future. I also love to read books on the topic, especially biographies of founding fathers and in depth stories of the Revolution. In high school I enjoyed memorizing speeches such as Patrick Henry's Give me Liberty or Give me Death. I hope to write a thesis on some niche topic under that umbrella in the coming semesters. Eventually, I plan to attend law school and one day hope to practice Constitutional law.

Through this internship my hope is to gain many valuable skills including leadership, oral history, digital history, transcription, and working as a team. I also believe it will be a great environment for me to experience a professional working atmosphere with regular meetings and reporting progress to project managers and leads. This is the first opportunity I have ever had to work on anything in the Public History area and so I look forward to learning as much about it as I can. Last semester I worked on transcribing civil war diaries through the department as a service learning project, which was a small window into what I believe this internship will be. I am very excited to continue this work and do so with a team of amazing people. I look forward to sharing my experiences on this blog and cannot wait to see what the semester has in store!