Blogs

Public history is presented in museums and historical societies; at monuments or national, state, and local parks. John Coski writes about how this public history message, particularly that of the Civil War, is changing.

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

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

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

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

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

The massacre at Mother Emanuel simultaneously underscores the endurance of Civil War memory in the contemporary United States and the extent to which Americans still struggle, often violently, to control the fundamental meanings of those memories.

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

“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 General Joseph Hooker in mid-April 1863 to a group of Union officers about his strategy for defeating Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Hooker,

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 Northern Virginia headquarters. Curious

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

Fortunately, this classic campaign has a chronicler worthy of its singular importance to the Union's ultimate victory.

The Books & Authors section of our Winter 2017 issue contained our annual roundup of the year's best Civil War titles. As usual, we enlisted the help of a handful of Civil War historians and enthusiasts, avid readers all, and asked them to pick their two favorite books published in 2017. Below are their picks.

Ulysses Grant famously described the Battle of Lookout Mountain as "all poetry."

...an excellent addition to both western theater cavalry studies and the specifics of the battle of Stones River.

The Confederate monument controversy that has exploded in recent months raises fundamental questions about the American Iliad. The removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, is only the best known of several examples that place these questions before us.

This is a delightful journey along the highways and byways of the circuit traveled by lawyer Lincoln...

...[I]f [Grant's] presidential ranking continues to rise, there is little question that Ron Chernow's exhaustive research and accessible writing style will be part of the reason.

Students of the war looking for insights into the connections between camp and home front will find the Cahills' letters to be quite rewarding.

On March 17, 1863, Josiah Marshall Favill, a young lieutenant in the 57th New York Infantry, was one of many soldiers in the Army of the Potomac to observe the elaborate St. Patrick's festivities being hosted by General Thomas Francis Meagher and the men of the Irish Brigade. When he returned to his regiment's camp later that day, Favill recorded the following observations in his diary: