
Quinn McPhail


Published: 12/29/21
Stephen A. Swails (2021)
Among the many shelves of biographies chronicling the exploits of Civil War Americans, there are precious few treatments of Black soldiers or sailors. This is just one reason that students...
Published: 12/22/21
Robert E. Lee (2021)
“How do you write the biography of someone who commits treason?” asks Allen C. Guelzo, Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and the distinguished author of some of this century’s...
Published: 12/15/21
Searching for Irvin McDowell (2021)
While there are shelves of books about Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, dozens of Civil War generals have not yet scored biographers. One name that falls into this...
Published: 12/8/21
Worthy of a Higher Rank (2021)
On October 22, 1864, three days after a remarkable Union victory at the Battle of Cedar Creek, The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer reported the grim news that one of that community’s most...
Published: 12/1/21
Rebel Correspondent (2021)
In 1901, Arba F. Shaw began writing a series of war reminiscences that were published in serialized form in his local newspaper. What began as a brief commentary turned into...
Published: 11/24/21
The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg & Tullahoma (2021)
On July 7, 1863, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, anxious to maintain Union initiative following pivotal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, sent a perplexing telegraph to one of his...
Published: 11/17/21
Passing Through the Fire (2021)
Savas Beatie’s popular Emerging Civil War series presents concise titles suited for both enthusiasts and novice students of military history. Increasingly, these brief but detailed studies have shifted away from...
Published: 11/10/21
The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg (2021)
The Summer of ‘63 is an engaging and diverse set of works exploring the Battle of Gettysburg. Regarded by many as the turning point of the Civil War, Gettysburg still...
Published: 11/3/21
Cornerstone of the Confederacy (2021)
The “corner-stone” of the Confederacy, insisted its newly-appointed vice president Alexander H. Stephens, “rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery—subordination...
Published: 10/27/21
Matchless Organization (2021)
In Matchless Organization, Guy R. Hasegawa offers a clear, detailed, and thorough history of the Confederacy’s military medical organization. The book is largely procedural, walking the reader through the organization of...
Published: 10/20/21
Lincoln’s Mentors (2021)
Americans, it seems, never tire of reading about Abraham Lincoln. Michael J. Gerhardt adds to the library of books about the sixteenth president with this impressive study of the men...
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Published: 10/15/21
The Mountain Campaigns in Georgia
Published in 1890, The Mountain Campaigns in Georgia—a slim volume devoted to telling the story of the battles fought in the war’s western theater along the Western & Atlantic Railroad—boasted a...
Published: 10/13/21
William Barksdale, CSA (2021)
William Barksdale’s life is often reduced to a single episode—namely, the charge his brigade made at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. This tendency leaves most of Barksdale’s life unexamined. As...
Published: 10/6/21
Buying & Selling Civil War Memory in Gilded Age America (2021)
In the two decades since the publication of David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, scholarship on the meaning and legacy of our nation’s fratricidal...
Published: 9/29/21
The Boy Generals (2021)
The June 24, 1865, issue of Harper’s Weekly carried a full-page engraving featuring Union generals Philip H. Sheridan, George Crook, James Forsyth, George Custer, and Wesley Merritt. The print, derived from...
Published: 9/22/21
Surviving Southampton (2021)
The name that is associated with any given event usually reveals how we remember it. In the case of “Nat Turner’s Rebellion,” the focus on the revolt’s “leader” is clear....
Published: 9/15/21
Lincoln and Citizenship (2021)
Two days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln delivered the last speech of his life. Responding to Louisiana’s plans for a new state constitution, Lincoln expressed his support for...
Published: 9/8/21
A Fire in the Wilderness (2021)
The two-day battle fought in the Wilderness of Spotsylvania on May 5 and 6, 1864, opened the Overland Campaign and the famous confrontation between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E....