Discover what life was like in Litchfield and on the battlefield during the Civil War in conjunction with the historical society’s new exhibition, “The Hour of Conflict.”

Reenactors from the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery will be on hand to tell tales about Civil War camp life and answer questions. There will be a reproduction tent and visitors can peek inside. Also, visitors are welcome to participate in a family-friendly Civil War scavenger hunt around the Litchfield Green. Those who complete the hunt will receive a prize.

Throughout the afternoon, local musical group Free Thought will be performing British and Scots-Irish songs adapted by American soldiers during the Civil War.

This event is free and open to the public. The Litchfield History Museum and Tapping Reeve House and Law School will also have free admission on the Family Day.

The Litchfield History Museum is located at 7 South St. in Litchfield, CT. For more information, call 860 567-4501.

For three weeks during September 1862, the atmosphere in the nation was electric, as people wondered what the future would hold. Lee was then marching toward Union soil, panicking cities and causing the North to wonder if it should redouble its efforts or let the South pursue its course.

Frye is a prominent Civil War historian, writer, lecturer, guide and preservationist. He has appeared on PBS, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, A&E and has also helped produce television features on John Brown and the Battle of Antietam.

Frye was also an associate producer for the Civil War movie, “Gods and Generals.” He is an avid preservationist and has helped save battlefields in 12 states. He has also led tours for numerous organizations including Civil War Round Tables, the Smithsonian and National Geographic.

Frye is the author of more than 75 articles some of which have been published in Civil War Times Illustrated, America’s Civil War, Blue & Gray Magazine, North and South Magazine, and Hallowed Ground. He is also the author of six books. His latest book, “Harpers Ferry Under Fire” will be available for purchase at the presentation on May 5.

His newest publication, “September Suspense: Lincoln’s Union in Peril,” is scheduled for release later this year.

The program is made possible through a grant from the Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut and the Connecticut Humanities Council and is presented by The Connecticut Civil War Round Table and the Torrington Historical Society.

His talk is set for Saturday, May 5, at 7 p.m. at the Coe Memorial Park Civic Center.

Refreshments will be served. Admission is free. For more information call the Torrington Historical Society at 860-482-8260.

Following this program, the Trumbull Historical Society will host its annual members meeting and elections for the historical society. Guests are invited to view its Civil War exhibits and gift shop. Refreshments will be provided.

In addtion, the Trumbull Lions will present “Connecticut Civil War Artifacts” featuring a presentation by collector Jeff Cook, at the Trumbull Historical Society on Sunday, May 20, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Cook will discuss Connecticut’s role in the Civil War through the artifacts and stories he has collected, most of which are Connecticut identified. His collection includes pistols, dresses, uniforms, swords, trunks, photographs.

He will also conduct a free raffle of a limited edition Civil War print by western artist Don Spaulding. Refreshments will be provided. This is a free event, but seating is limited. The Trumbull Historical Society is located at 1856 Huntington Turnpike in Trumbull, CT.

Her career began in news broadcasting in Texas; however, after a few years she moved to ESPN in Connecticut where she appeared on hundreds of Sports Center broadcasts. Although she specialized in equine sports and has written several books on that subject, this book on the Civil War grew out of her life-long fascination with that topic.

In her book, Smith gives a complete guide to all the various sites in Connecticut related to the war. She talks about inventors such as Eli Whitney, whose cotton gin made the institution of slavery even more profitable.

She also focuses on the arms factories in Hartford, New Haven, Middletown and Norwich where Connecticut’s production of guns and gun powder was formidable. In Eastern Connecticut, many textile mills produced the fabric for uniforms for the Union soldiers. In the Naugatuck Valley, the brass making manufacturers began to turn out shell casings, uniform buttons and other hardware used in the weapons.

The book offers descriptions and directions to the homes of the inventors, abolitionists, authors, as well as the manufacturing centers, monuments, and museums. Although no battles of the Civil War were fought in Connecticut, the role that our state played was a vital one.

Smith will talk Thursday, May 31, 2012, at 7 p.m. in the Fort Conference Center in New London. The program is open to the public and new members are always welcome.

Samuel Jay Nettleton

The exhibit traces the life of Samuel Jay Nettleton, from his perspective, and informs people of a soldier’s journey through the war. Civil War letters, pictures and artifacts from the Gunn Museum are creatively used to explore his life and share his stories of bravery and horror.

The exhibit is part of the national award winning annual history project with the Gunn Museum, now in its sixth year, that teaches history to students using local primary source documents from the museum. Eighty-six 8th grade social studies students at Shepaug School have been transcribing forty letters by this Civil War soldier and researching his life.

Their research has included family genealology, an oral history interview with Samuel Nettleton’s 103-year-old granddaughter Edith Nettleton, a field trip to the Washington Cemetery and the Nettleton Family Homestead.

The students will be sharing their transcriptions, original research and interpretation, consisting of poems, essays, illustrations, in an exhibit and book, which will be available for sale at the opening of the exhibit. Civil War reenactors will also be present at the opening of the exhibit and will be playing Civil War era music.

The exhibit opens Monday, May 14, from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Entrance Mall of Shepaug Valley Middle School in Washington, CT, and will run through June 11.

Ryan Blessey at the Gurski Forge

The farmstead property connects with many open space trails, and visitors will be able to explore the grounds, view the farmstead buildings from the outside and observe the Brookfield Lion’s community garden.

The museum’s open house is set for

Saturday, May 19, from 10 a.m and 4 p.m. The farmstead is located on the left side of Route 133 approximately 1/2 mile from the intersection of Routes 25 and 133 in Brookfield Center heading north in the direction of Bridgewater.

Admission is free and the public is invited to attend. For more information on this and other future events of the Brookfield Historical Society call 203 740-8140 or visit www.brookfieldcthistory.org.

The Hartford, which was incorporated in 1810 by the Connecticut General Assembly, also later sold President Abraham Lincoln coverage for his property in Springfield, Ill, reported the insurance publication, Property Casualty 360, as part of an overview of the oldest insturance companies and the birth of insurance in the U.S.

In 1822 The Hartford reinsured the New Haven Fire Insurance Co., one of the first instances of reinsurance in America. In 1825 the insurer was the first to issue a policy to an institute of higher learning – Yale University.

According to Wikipedia.org, when Civil War casualties overflowed hospitals and burial grounds near Washington, D.C., Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs proposed in 1864 that 200 acres of the Robert E. Lee family property at Arlington be confiscated for a cemetery.

The government acquired Arlington at tax sale in 1864 for $26,800, equal to $398,237 today. Mrs. Lee had not appeared in person, but rather had sent an agent, attempting to timely pay the $92.07 in property taxes (equal to $1,368.12 today) assessed the estate. The government turned away her agent, refusing to accept the tendered payment.

In 1874, Custis Lee, heir under his grandfather’s will passing the estate in trust to his mother, sued the United States claiming ownership of Arlington. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Lee’s favor in United States v. Lee, deciding that Arlington had been confiscated without due process, Congress returned the estate to him.

The next year, Custis Lee sold it back to the government for $150,000 (equal to $3,174,545 today) at a signing ceremony with Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln.The southern portion of the land now occupied by the cemetery was used during and after the Civil War as a settlement for freed slaves.

Wikipedia also notes that more than 1,100 freed slaves were given land at Freedman’s Village by the government, where they farmed and lived during and after the Civil War. They were evicted in 1888 when the estate was repurchased by the government and dedicated as a military installation.

“I was so thrilled and honored to receive the Jainschigg Award,” Donohue said, according to the Hartford Business Journal. “I am proud to say that I knew Janet Jainschigg and each of the previous winners. This award is for excellence in historic preservation, so to receive it at this point in my career is very meaningful.”

For more than 30 years, Donahue has worked for the State Historic Preservation Office (formerly the Connecticut Historical Commission, and then the Commission on Culture & Tourism), where her chief responsibility has been to encourage, assist, and supervise the surveys that uncover the significant historic places, according to the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation.

Most of these surveys were focused on a single town or a section of a town, but she also has envisioned, created, and implemented numerous more specialized studies, including surveys of heritage landscapes, outdoor sculptures, historic synagogues, farms and resorts operated by Jewish immigrants, National Guard armories, Civil War monuments, and sites associated with the movement of French forces through Connecticut during the Revolutionary War.

She has overseen more than 1,500 grants to municipalities and nonprofit organizations that have helped to protect and preserve the state’s landmark buildings and districts.

Donahue also oversaw public education programs designed to get this information out to the public, administered grants to publish survey results, and coauthored three award-wining publications — Built to Serve: Connecticut’s National Guard Armories 1865-1940, En Avant with our French Allies, and A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish Farmers — and in 2009 she masterminded an exhibition, “Living Modern in New Canaan,” about that town’s world-class collection of Modernist houses.

“Ten years after the first call to end slavery in Connecticut, the Legislature passed a gradual emancipation act,” Plummer writes in an article for the Norwich Bulletin. “Children born to a slave mother after March 1, 1784, would be freed on their 25th birthday. There was no obligation to free anyone born before that date.”

“In 1798, the Rev. Thompson, of North Canaan, planned to move to Virginia, taking Jupiter Mars and his family with him for sale,” he writes. “Jupiter gathered up his family and fled during the night. Aided by local residents, the Mars family eluded capture. Finally, the minister reached an agreement to sell the family to buyers of their own choice, who pledged to keep them in the state.”

During the Civil War, he says, James Mars, son of Jupiter, wrote: “Connecticut I love thy name but not thy restrictions. I think the time is not far distant when the colored man will have his rights in Connecticut.”