One of the longest-running and most famous Civil War weekends will no longer be held in its current form. The Manassas Museum has decided that the current format Civil War Weekend has now run its course, and while a history weekend will still be held in Manassas, it will no longer focus solely on the Civil War.
On July 21st, 1861, the First Battle of Manassas – or as the north knew it, The First Battle of Bull Run – signaled the start of the significant battles of the American Civil War.
This battle, and the contribution made by the City of Manassas during the War Between the States, has long been the focus of an annual festival-cum-history-weekend held at and organized by the Manassas Museum.
The museum is a huge drawcard for the city, and around 13,000 visitors tour its halls on an annual basis. The Civil War Weekend has drawn crowds of 200 or more.
A spokesperson from the museum, talking in a recent interview, said that between the years 2011 and 2016, the museum had focused strongly on the Civil War as it celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the war. In 2017, the Civil War weekend was canceled due to security concerns after the events that occurred in Charlottesville just before it was to have been held.
There had been a lot of tension all over the South over Civil War statues and memorials, and these tensions boiled over in Charlottesville on August 12th, 1917, when two groups of protesters faced off over the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee and a vehicle was deliberately crashed into the crowd with devastating results.
The curator of the Manassas Museum, Mary Helen Dellinger, was at pains to point out that the city and the museum had never had plans for a Civil War weekend but that this year, they do have plans for a Manassas History Weekend, which is to be held on August 24th–26th, 2018.
This History weekend will focus on the contribution the city has made to the Civil War as well as the Revolutionary War; World Wars I and II; the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts; and the military action in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
This more comprehensive view will show that the city and its inhabitants have contributed to all of the calls to arms made by the U.S. Government and not only focus on one specific conflict.
The exhibitions and discussions will include personal stories by veterans, military historians, and interpreters. Liberia House will host the Civil War exhibition with a living history interpreter talking about this time. Liberia House is the original plantation house for a plantation owned by William and Harriett Weir.
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The show will include talks on the people that lived there, both slaves and free men, and how the war affected all of them. The museum will build various encampments so people can see what life was like during the Civil War.
The weekend, which is free to the public, will include fun events such as face painting, children’s games, a scavenger hunt, cannons, tanks, and book talks.