Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute Launches Cool Spring App

By Jonathan A. Noyalas · Originally published August 2021 · p. 39

Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute Launches Cool Spring App by Jonathan A. Noyalas, Director

Nearly two years in the making, Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute (MCWI), in partnership with the University’s Center for Immersive Learning, launched an augmented reality app, Through Their Eyes, on March 24. The app, which can be downloaded for free on the App Store or Google Play (search “Through Their Eyes”) focuses on the individual experiences of soldiers engaged at the Battle of Cool Spring on July 18, 1864. Fought along the banks of the Shenandoah River in Clarke County, Va., the Battle of Cool Spring does not rank among the Civil War’s most well-known engagements; however, to the soldiers who fought and were wounded at Cool Spring, and to family members who lost loved ones, there was no more significant moment in their lives than Cool Spring. The app, based on the primary accounts of Union and Confederate soldiers, utilizes two forms of augmented reality to bring visitors into a particular moment in the engagement. First, the app contains one dozen 360 degree augmented reality videos. After scanning any flat surface with a smart phone or I-pad, users will see a three-dimensional topographic map of the battlefield with a series of markers noting the position of various regiments during the battle. Clicking on one of the markers transports users into a 360 augmented video experience where living historians recreate the experience described in the primary account.

Each vignette lasts approximately two minutes, and includes an introduction to that particular moment in the battle, the narrated primary account, and information about the soldier who authored the account. Among the soldiers whose accounts are used to create an augmented video experience is Corporal Charles Lynch, 18th Connecticut Infantry. Lynch, who enlisted in the regiment on August 6, 1862, took great pride in the fact that he marched “every step” of 1,300 miles during the summer and autumn campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. Lynch, whose diary was published in 1918, described the obstacles he and his comrades confronted in retreating across the Shenandoah River. Although Corporal Lynch thought he “was a goner” during the Union retreat across the Shenandoah River, he survived the battle and the war. After the conflict he was as an engineer. He died on August 2, 1924, and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford, Conn. In addition to the augmented 360 video experience, the app includes a GPS-enabled augmented audio tour. When visitors, who walk the approximately two mile battlefield trail, approach within circa ten feet of a GPS coordinate, the augmented audio tour will engage and take visitors into a particular moment in the battle through the perspective of a soldier. In addition to an introduction to the moment, primary account, and information about that soldier, the augmented audio tour includes an appropriate soundscape for that vignette. The 4th North Carolina Infantry’s James Columbus Steele is among the voices in

Through Their Eyes Home Page. Courtesy MCWI.

Brandy Noyalas, wife of MCWI’s director Jonathan A. Noyalas, explores the app’s 360 augmented video experience. Courtesy MCWI. Corporal Charles Lynch’s account of the Battle of Cool Spring is among the two dozen accounts of Union and Confederate soldiers whose perspectives on the battle and its aftermath form the app’s foundation. The Civil War Diary of Charles H. Lynch, 1918.

the augmented audio experience. Steele, a member of the regimental band, enlisted in the regiment on June 7, 1861. Steele’s account focuses on Confederate General Robert Rodes’ initial flank attack against the northern end of the Union line. Steele, who survived the conflict, found enormous success after the conflict as an inventor, businessman, and factory, brick plant, and sawmill operator. He died in 1921 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Statesville, N.C. While anyone can use the 360 augmented reality video experience anywhere, the augmented audio experience is only usable on-site at Shenandoah University’s River Campus at Cool Spring Battlefield located at 1400 Parker Lane, Bluemont, Va. In the coming years additions to the app are planned. Further material will not only include additional vignettes from the battle, but also highlight the experiences of individuals who lived and labored on that portion of the Cool Spring battlefield now under the care of Shenandoah University during the Civil War era including Judge Richard Parker and the enslaved folk on the approximately 1,100 acre plantation, the Retreat.

Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute and a professor in the history department at Shenandoah University. He is the author or editor of fourteen books including Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era released in late April by University Press of Florida.