Library to Host Dramatic Reading of “The Language of War”

Tompkins County Public Library, in partnership with the Tompkins County Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration Commission, will present a dramatic reading of “The Language of War,” October 22 at 7 p.m. in the Library’s BorgWarner Community Room.

Written by Tompkins County Historian and Commission Co-Chair Carol Kammen, “The Language of War” explores what Tompkins County residents said and wrote about patriotism, race, volunteerism, boredom and fear during the Civil War, based on commentary from letters, diaries and local and national newspapers. 

Commission members will read dialogue from an intriguing cast of characters, including:  Belle Cowdry who lived in what is now the Argos Inn, Colonel Dowe, George Wolcott of the Town of Caroline, a saucy soldier who is sent to the brig, Civil War Nurses from the county, Warren Lyon, the men who enlisted at the AME Zion Church on Christmas Day, 1863, including Edward Sorrel and his father John who died in South Carolina; Taylor Baldwin of Lansing, Thomas Todd; Enos Cook who fell in Tennessee, and they will hear something about what was happening in Ithaca from a letter written from an Ithaca mother to her son serving in the Union Navy.

“The Language of War” is being presented in conjunction with “Lincoln:  The Constitution and the Civil War,” a nationally-traveling thematic exhibit on display at TCPL through October 31.

The exhibit and the reading of “The Language of War” are free and open to the public.  For more information, contact Carrie Wheeler-Carmenatty at (607) 272-4557 extension 248 or cwheeler@tcpl.org.

“Lincoln:  the Constitution and the Civil War,” a traveling exhibition for libraries, was organized by the National Constitution Center and the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The traveling exhibition has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.   “Lincoln:  the Constitution and the Civil War” is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the National Constitution Center.