Gamers could play as either the Confederacy or United States militaries and had to develop tactics and strategies for defeating the enemy, but what these militaries were fighting about was left unanswered. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these games did little to provide a larger context for the causes, context, and consequences of the war. One thing sticks out to me about these Civil War video games, however. Sid Meier’s Gettysburg in particular became an award-winning hit with more than 200,000 copies sold after its 1997 release. Like other military video games then and now, these titles combine decision-making, strategy, narrative, and compelling graphics to draw gamers into these imaginary worlds. Lee: Civil War General, and Grant, Lee, Sherman: Civil War Generals 2, just to name a few. But I am now learning about and playing some of the classics from the 1990s: Sid Meier’s Gettysburg, Robert E. I did not grow up with an interest in the Civil War era, nor did I play Civil War video games. (I am not the only person thinking this way a disclaimer on the website currently says “we are under heavy load of retrogamers wanting to travel back to those old and safe times.”) Today, as the world faces the uncertainties of a terrible global pandemic and the realities of stay home orders and quarantines, I have passed some of my free time playing classic video games from my childhood on MyAbandonware, a website with more than 15,000 games available for free download. Whether connecting to the dial-up modem to play a racing game with my grandfather or walking with my classmates to the school computer lab, video games sparked my curiosity and provided countless hours of entertainment. Forum: The Future of Civil War Era StudiesĪs a child of the 1990s, some of my earliest memories revolve around playing PC video games.Reconstruction in Public History and Memory at the Sesquicentennial: A Roundtable Discussion.Maintaining a Radical Vision of African Americans in the Age of Freedom.In a Class by Itself: Slavery and the Emergence of Capitalist Social Relations during Reconstruction.Birthright Citizenship and Reconstruction’s Unfinished Revolution.The Civil War and State-Building: A Reconsideration.Forum: The Future of Reconstruction Studies.

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