Blogs

"Salmon P. Chase" by Walter Stahr is an admirable treatment of an oft-forgotten nineteenth century politician.

Looking for good books on Civil War photography? We asked Ronald S. Coddington, author and publiser of Military Images magazine, for three books on the subject that he considers essential reads. Here are his picks: 

"Back From Battle" documents the valuable role that Pennsylvania's Camp Discharge played in the war's final months.

Susan Jonusas's "Hell's Half-Acre" spotlights the Benders as particularly monstrous actors on a stage covered in the blood of conquest and post-Civil War racial strife.

In "Harriet Tubman" Kerry Walters adds historical depth to the well-known abolitionist's life.

I suppose you could say that I started researching my recently published book, Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War, when I was 12 years old. In 1998, I met a man from my hometown of Akron, Ohio, who spent much of his late teens and early twenties crisscrossing the Midwest in search of the last survivors of Abraham Lincoln’s armies. Nearly 70 years old and the son of a ...

"To Address You as My Friend" assembles a wonderfully rich and fascinating mosaic of the hopes, dreams, and frustrations of African Americans during the Civil War.

"First Fallen" is a welcome addition to the literature that casts its gaze on the North and the men who rallied to the United States flag in 1861.

“That is the last speech he will ever make.” So remarked John Wilkes Booth on April 11, 1865, after listening to President Abraham Lincoln deliver remarks outside the White House. Speaking to a crowd of thousands only two days after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Lincoln had mentioned

In "Our Comfort in Dying," Jonathan W. Peters brings together significant works by a Virginian who was notable not only as one of those who “rode with Stonewall,” but also as a major spiritual and intellectual thinker in the Civil War South.

In "A House Built By Slaves," Jonathan W. White offers a narrative of Black Americans pushing the president toward emancipation and Lincoln listening to their arguments....

A case study in the negative impact of dysfunctional command relationships ...

Gary J. Kornblith and Carol Lasser's "Elusive Utopia" merges social, gender, political, and economic history while foregrounding the voices of Black and white Oberlinians.

Several European journalists and military officers wrote about their experiences with the Army of Northern Virginia. Almost all of them, it is important to acknowledge, adopted a very favorable stance toward Robert E. Lee and his soldiers. The most quoted by far is Arthur James Lyon Fremantle,

"Civil War Witnesses" collects eight, carefully crafted and extensively researched essays.

In the Voices section of the Spring 2022 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted quotes by and about famous Civil War nurse Mary "Mother" Bickerdyke. Unfortunately, we didn't have room to include all that we found. Below are those that just missed the cut.

In "Ends of War," Caroline Janney examines the uncertainties surrounding Confederate surrender.

Chris Bagley's "The Horse at Gettysburg" is a solid study by a licensed battlefield guide.

Jack Noe's "Contesting Commemoration" explores the complex realities of post-war reunion.

In his 1948 novel Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner famously describes a Mississippi boy playing soldier—pretending to be the entire Rebel army, as it were—in the minutes preceding the disastrous Pickett-Pettigrew assault at the Battle of Gettysburg. For a fleeting moment, before James Longstreet has given the word and “it’s all still in the balance,” the boy reimagines the battle...