Garry Adelman Honored With Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Award in Massachusetts

By Bob Carlson · Originally published January 2018 · p. 5

The Civil War Roundtable of Central Massachusetts sponsored Garry Adelman for the 2017 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Award, presented by the CWRTCM and Boston Roundtable at our awards dinner on Oct. 28, in Framingham, Mass., Garry is a noted author, educator, tireless battlefield and photography preservation advocate, and battlefield guide. He is Director of History and Education at the Civil War Trust and vice president of the Center For Civil War Photography. His published works include The Myth of Little Round Top, Antietam Then & Now, Devil’s Den: A History & Guide, and Manassas Battlefield, Then & Now. Why do we honor particular individuals, such as past honorees Ed Bearss, Ken Burns, James MacPherson, Bud Robertson, Dennis Frye, and retired Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, Frank Williams, etc.? The common thread is enthusiastic preservation and advancement of our American Civil War heritage and history. These traits are personified by our recipient, Garry Adelman. His dedication to, preservation of, appreciation for, and increasing knowledge of our Civil War history is renowned. He is the personification of excellence in his encyclopedic historical knowledge; his boundless energy is always evident (the Eveready Bunny comes to mind!).I elicited a smile once upon referring to Garry as a “young Ed Bearss,” in this case not an invalid comparison and one which, of course, does not diminish at all, but rather enhances, his perceived reputation, as anyone who has walked a battlefield with Ed or Garry can attest. His continued efforts to preserve both the hallowed ground on which our Union and

Confederate forbears fought and the photographic record of the war, is unequaled. As Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain skillfully put it at Gettysburg on Oct. 3, 1889, in my favorite quote: “In great deeds, something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger to consecrate ground for the vision place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision shall pass into their souls.” The hallowed ground referred to herein is what Garry’s preservation efforts are all about. His depth of knowledge and boundless enthusiasm form an ideal combination, at Civil War Trust and Center for Civil War Photography, including his always excellent annual CCWP Image of War Seminars where he magically takes us back in history via the photographic record of the War Between the States. At the awards dinner, Garry entertained and enlightened us with his “Civil War Photo and Preservation Extravaganza,” in which he emphasized that the Civil War was the first to be extensively photographed and, for the first time in history, the public was exposed to real-life images of the gruesome toll of battle. He emphasized that using these photographs to better understand, restore, and preserve battlefields has become its own field of study. Through then-and-now techniques, tight details, and several other approaches, Garry tells the story of the war in a manner available nowhere else. It was a distinct honor and privilege to honor Garry here in Massachusetts with this award.