A New Look at America's Greatest Conflict

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"Submarine Torpedo Boat H.L. Hunley, Dec. 6, 1863" by Conrad Wise Chapman
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The Decision

Vol. 8, No. 2

Why did Robert E. Lee turn down command of the Union army and join the Confederacy in 1861? It's complicated.

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Recent Posts

Whither Public History?

Articles

Public history is presented in museums and historical societies; at monuments or national, state, and local parks. John Coski writes about...

CUTRER: Theater of a Separate War (2017)

Book Reviews

A comprehensive history of the most complicated, diverse, and misunderstood part of the American Civil War.

BALLARD: William Edmondson "Grumble" Jones (2017)

Book Reviews

...a balanced and solid biography of one of the Civil War's more obscure figures.

WILLIAMS: Georgia's Civil War (2017)

Book Reviews

Women, enslaved African Americans, and upper-class planters determined the parameters within which the Confederate military effort would...

CONNOLE: The Civil War and the Subversion of American Indian Sovereignty (2017)

Book Reviews

The end of the Civil War ultimately brought no peace to the Indian Territory....

WILLS: Inglorious Passages (2017)

Book Reviews

Wills' study...underscores the sheer ubiquity of death that descended upon the nation between 1861 and 1865.

COOK: Civil War Memories (2017)

Book Reviews

The massacre at Mother Emanuel simultaneously underscores the endurance of Civil War memory in the contemporary United States and the extent...

MACKOWSKI & WHITE (eds.): Turning Points of the American Civil War (2017)

Book Reviews

Historic turning points can hinge on the stroke of a pen or a turn in the road.

Chancellorsville

Photo Essays

“My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.” So said Major ...

Battlefield Echoes: MOPs, MOEs, and Chancellorsville

Articles

In the aftermath of his army’s defeat at Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee welcomed a brother of Secretary of War James Seddon to Army of...

JORDAN (ed.): The Slave-Trader's Letter-Book (2018)

Book Reviews

[Charles Lamar's] correspondence is a particular boon for historians of the slave trade...

Handmade Badge Reproductions

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Featured Posts

AYERS: The Thin Light of Freedom (2017)

Book Reviews

Hindsight, Ayers understands, is often the enemy of understanding.

The Eisenhower Farm during the Battle of Gettysburg

Articles

While not commonly looked upon as part of the battlefield, the Eisenhower Farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, played a significant role during...

The West's Missing War

Stereoscope

Why is the Civil War mostly absent in one of our most beloved film and television genres?

The Best Civil War Books of All Time

Analysis

For our latest newsstand-only special issue, The Civil War Almanac, we asked a panel of Civil War historians--J. Matthew Gallman, Matthew C....

The Water War

Photo Essays

Vastly smaller than the forces that fought the Civil War on land, the Union and Confederate navies have long been overlooked by history,...

Fantasizing Lee as a Civil Rights Pioneer

Analysis

There's a tale widely told these days about how Robert E. Lee, soon after the war, reached out in Christian fellowship to a black worshiper...