Troy woman pursues Civil War passion

BY ERIC HRIN

TROY - Mary Hawthorne of Troy has always been interested in American history.

"I grew up in southeast Pennsylvania," she said. "My father, who grew up across the river from Philadelphia, would tell me about the how that area we lived in played an important part during the Revolutionary War period."

But it's the Civil War that really fascinates her.

A Civil War aficionado and a music teacher at Troy Middle School, her first visit to Gettysburg was in 1973 during a band exchange trip her high school had with another high school. She was 16 years old.

"I was intrigued by being able to see actual scars left on a battlefield," she recalled. "I could not see that at Brandywine or Valley Forge. In college, I was able to take classes that gave a little more detail about the Civil War and I started to read more about Gettysburg. In 1989, when the PBS series on the Civil War came out, that hooked me into gleaning more books from the local library."

Her interest got a boost through the Internet.

"In 2000, our house became one of many who entered the cyber world and I looked for a place to see if there were any other people who were just as interested about the war as I was," she said. "I found a chat room group that I still interact with and take yearly trips with to different battlefields of the Civil War."

Hawthorne uses her knowledge in her job.

"A few years back we had a program at the middle school aimed at giving different experiences to our fifth and sixth grade gifted and talented students," she said. "My contribution to that was to give them some more detailed insight into the life of a soldier and why they were fighting. I culminated my time with them by taking them on a three-day, two-night trip to Gettysburg."

She noted they stayed at a campground, and she gave them the tour of the battlefield and town, talked about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address, and did some camp cooking.

"For the past nine years or so, I have been a guest teacher for the eighth grade, and teach them about Gettysburg as part of their Pennsylvania history. I try as often as I can to get some local re-enactors to come to the school for demonstrations."

Lyle Wesneski, a history teacher at the middle school, is impressed by Hawthorne's guest speaking in his class and her Civil War expertise.

"She's very passionate about the Civil War. What a plethora of knowledge she has."

And, in her music classes, Hawthorne has been studying American Folk music with the eighth graders.

"One of the sub areas I focused on was music during times of turmoil such as war. The Civil War period produced a great variety of songs and no other war in our history produced the quantity that this period produced. It just became natural for me to incorporate this music into my class."

It's the individual battles of the war that interest her most.

"I like to know what units did what on a battlefield, how an action is responded to, how orders were interpreted by the recipients and how they were carried out," she said. "I also like to read about individual important people involved in these battles."

Hawthorne said she has "the beginnings of a good collection of books" on the Civil War.

"I have about 120 books exclusively based on the Civil War. My husband says to others that I don't just have the books, I have read them all as well. Some may think that is a lot for one subject, but some of my friends have whole rooms loaded with books devoted to the Civil War. Right now, I need a new bookshelf to fit more of my books I have now. I also talk online with my friends in book discussions and just general chat." She also has Civil War replicas, including a sword.

And just this summer Hawthorne found out that she has a Civil War ancestor.

John Adams, her great-great-great grandfather, was a follower of Eli Thayer, a Massachusetts abolitionist who helped found anti-slavery settlements in Kansas and what is now West Virginia.

She said that the West Virginia governor asked him to help recruit soldiers for West Virginia for the Union Army. Eventually, Rebel guerillas captured and executed him.

Hawthorne's great-grandmother, Adelaide Hamlin Thierry, wrote a poem about Adams, which was passed onto Hawthorne by her aunt.

"It was incredible," Hawthorne said of seeing the poem. "I couldn't believe it."

In addition, Hawthorne said her husband's great-grandfather was James Hawthorne, Jr., who was in the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

And what is it about this period in America history that fascinates Hawthorne?

"When I first had an interest in the war, it was because there was much literature about the war and Gettysburg was close by to see the scars of war," she said. "As I studied the war, my intrigue was more to what caused our nation to have a split like this and the fact that it took bloodshed to answer some of those questions that caused the split. The biggest thing is that it took that war to make us what we are today."

Eric Hrin can be reached at (570) 297-5251; e-mail: reviewtroy@thedailyreview.com.