Summer Travel Experts Pick 1. Historic Sites Worth Visiting. As the summer vacation season begins, TIME History asked prominent experts in American history to recommend a historic place to visit, and compiled their picks here. Unsurprisingly given the course of American history, the Civil War looms large on this list, but it is by no means the only moment that lives on in the landscape. Some of the suggestions on the list are easily recognizable, in which case the experts insights can help visitors see a familiar place in a new light, and others are more off the beaten path, offering a chance to learn about a historical figure or event that is no less important for being less talked about. Happy trails. President Lincolns Cottage, on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, in Washington, D. C., was where Lincoln spent about a quarter of his Presidency, during summers, including some of the most important moments of those crucial years, such as planning the Emancipation Proclamation. By the end of the 2. Lincoln sought quiet refuge here during the Civil War. Michael Beschloss, presidential historian. The Lincoln Memorial is one of the most beautifully designed, deeply moving places in the world, a testament to the power of one mans words and energy to change things for the better. Ken Burns, Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker and co director with Lynn Novick of The Vietnam War, which will air on PBS in September. Beaufort, S. C. In the waning days of his presidency, Barack Obama designated Beaufort a National Landmark devoted to the history of Reconstruction, the pivotal era that followed the Civil War. It was in Reconstruction that the laws and Constitution were rewritten to try to create a society based on equal rights regardless of race, and when interracial democracy for the first time flourished in this country. Base Wars Gamemode Download. The emancipated slaves took important steps toward enjoying genuine freedom, but eventually progress was thwarted and reversed by terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. In the Beaufort area, buildings and monuments still stand that exemplify the history of Reconstruction the Penn Center, where northern women set up a school to educate the freed people the home of Robert Smalls, the areas longtime black political leader plantations where African Americans acquired land and other sites. In Beaufort, visitors can learn about what might be called the first civil rights era, a period of our history most Americans know little about but whose struggles over equality and freedom resonate today. Eric Foner, historian and author of The Fiery Trial Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, winner of the 2. Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize. The Black Heritage Trail in Boston I love to put on my walking shoes and step into history via this walking tour of the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood now called the North Slope, which tells a different, less familiar story about Boston as the birthplace of freedom. The trail includes numerous sites from the turn of the 1. Civil War years. Tourists visit the African Meeting House, where black Bostonians worshipped God as well as held protest rallies for integrated education and the abolition of southern slavery, the Abiel Smith School, the citys only school for black children until the mid 1. Bostonians who hid and protected fugitives from southern slavery. Read articles and watch lectures by Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Watch breaking news videos, viral videos and original video clips on CNN. The artistically breathtaking moment for me is the sight of the magnificent bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint Gaudens. Tears often swell in my eyes when I listen to the park ranger describe this stunning memorial to the white Union officer Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his regiment of African American soldiers, the Massachusetts 5. I imagine myself among the throngs of onlookers on May 2. Beacon Street. Tourists come away from the Black Heritage Trail with the recognition that this Boston birthplace of freedom forged a new path in America toward greater liberty and justice for all. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Gettysburg, Penn. The battlefield is in great shape, very beautiful, and very, very moving. Visiting the site of Picketts Charge is most moving, an infantry charge across an open field. Try to put yourself in that situation If you were engaged in that charge, how would that have feltTo me, it just defies the imagination, but thats just the way they did war back then and what they were called on to do that day. Erik Larson, author of bestselling narrative nonfiction books, including In the Garden of Beasts Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitlers Berlin and The Devil in the White City. Matlab Audio Database Toolbox Download. Get your history fix in one place sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. Storm King Mountain Memorial Trail Outside Glenwood Springs, Colo., just off the I 7. South Canyon Fire around Storm King Mountain. There is a monument to the 1. Prineville, Ore. Of all the places I have ever gone and hiked and thought about things, in my judgment, thats just the most intense place to go. Firefighters from all over the world come and leave things in memory of these kids. When you go on the hike, you can see some of the impacts of the fire. Really important decisions about firefighting why firefighters were sent in when they should never have been sent in the proper chain of communications and weather forecasting a lot of that stuff came out of this fire. There are a lot of small western towns in the American west, where being a smokejumper is a really important summer job. That can be college tuition right there. And it forms a sense of teamhood and camaraderie and self esteem, so it raised a very big set of questions that are uncomfortable. But it also raised questions that Im not sure were thinking enough about where we live and how we live, and about our responsibility to others. For background you can read Fire on the Mountain by John Maclean, son of the famous Western writer Norman Maclean. Patty Limerick, the Faculty Director and Chair of the Board of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, where she is also a professor of history. Shiloh in western Tennessee is a beautifully preserved battlefield in a rural area that may not get as much visitation as its importance deserves. Its very little changed from the way it was more than 1. Its the site of a crucial battle in April of 1. Ulysses S. Grant before the Vicksburg campaign. This was a Confederate counteroffensive to try to regain what they had lost in Tennessee, and it was successful on the first day. Grant was surprised by the attack, and it drove the Union forces back to the Tennessee river with their backs to the river. But Grant never contemplated the possibility of losing, and the next day, he led a counter attack which won the battle for the north. The Confederates were forced to retreat. There were larger battles later in the war, but that was the first real mass bloodletting. It was a wake up call for both sides that this was not going to be a quick or easy war. Grant was criticized for having been surprised and for the large number of casualties 1. But Lincoln stuck with him. He said, I cant spare this man he fights A kind of major factor in the ultimate Union victory was Lincolns willingness to stick with Grant when a lot of other people said Grant should have been fired. But Lincoln kept Grant in command, and the rest is history, as we know.