Blog
Published: 9/9/20
Colossal Ambitions (2020)
In recent years, Paul Quigley, Michael T. Bernath, Ann Tucker, Andre Fleche, and Don Doyle have greatly expanded our understanding of the Confederate nation, situating the slaveholding republic within a...
Published: 9/7/20
Agenda: September 2020 Events
acwm.org White House of the Confederacy Looking for a Civil War event—virtual or in person—to attend in September? Below are some very good options to keep you busy. White House...
Published: 9/4/20
A Man of Sorrows
Library of Congress Abraham Lincoln in 1860 Abraham lincoln had a great reputation for humor. He cracked jokes constantly—often painfully bad ones, as when he said after examining a model...
Published: 9/2/20
The Women’s Fight (2020)
“The spaces in which women live during times of war are no more inviolate than the spaces in which men fight, and the two are never completely cordoned off from...
Published: 8/26/20
Seceding from Secession (2020)
Thirty years after the Civil War, Theodore Lang, a veteran of the 6th West Virginia Cavalry, observed that “a great neglect exists at this time, and has existed for many...
Published: 8/25/20
Extra Voices: Thirst
Library of Congress In the Voices section of the Fall 2020 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted quotes by Union and Confederate soldiers about the extreme thirst they...
Published: 8/19/20
Hellmira (2020)
With Hellmira, Derek Maxfield supplies an easy-to-read introductory volume on Civil War military prisons, placing emphasis on the “Andersonville of the North.” Arguing that one cannot understand the “Hellmira” myth...
Published: 8/12/20
Christopher H. Tebault, Surgeon to the Confederacy (2020)
Collectors of historical artifacts often like to share what they have learned about the previous owners of their treasures. That motive drove Alan I. West, who purchased a medicine chest...
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Published: 8/7/20
Road Trip: Petersburg to Appomattox
Few regions offer a denser concentration of Civil War history than Central Virginia. The historical significance of the region is reason enough to visit, but the fact that you can retrace...
Published: 8/6/20
Agenda: August 2020 Events
Library of Congress Battle of Wilson’s Creek Looking for a Civil War event—virtual or in person—to attend in August? Below are some very good options. Keep checking back as we’ll...
Published: 8/5/20
Newest Born of Nations (2020)
Paul Quigley has written that white Southerners “often placed the American nation in international context” (Quigley, Shifting Grounds, 7). Ann L. Tucker, a former student of Quigley’s, describes how southerners...
Published: 7/30/20
Eyewitness to the Crater
Virginia Historical Society Confederate officer William Pegram After weeks of preparation, Union forces detonated a mine under the Confederate lines outside Petersburg, Virginia, on July 30, 1864. Union infantry then...
Published: 7/30/20
The Best Books About Robert E. Lee
Library of Congress Bruce Catton When I was 12 I found a mass market paperback of Bruce Catton’s A Stillness at Appomattox, and it yanked me so deep into the...
Published: 7/29/20
Horace Greeley (2019)
Most students of nineteenth century America regard Horace Greeley as a political chameleon. The bespectacled New York Tribune editor who sensationalized the violence of Bleeding Kansas, impatiently urged Lincoln’s armies “on...
Published: 7/25/20
An Infernal Machine
In the July 27, 1861, issue of Harper’s Weekly, the editors published a small story about an “infernal machine” recently removed from the Potomac River near where the sloop-of-war USS...
Published: 7/22/20
In The Waves (2020)
On a calm, cool February night in 1864, the USS Housatonic lay at anchor just outside of Charleston harbor. One of many Union ships blockading one of the Confederacy’s few remaining...
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Published: 7/16/20
U.S. Army Surgical Kit
In 1918, physician William Keen, who had served as a Union army surgeon during the Civil War, reflected on the surgical conditions he and his fellow military doctors faced in the...
Published: 7/15/20
Arguing Until Doomsday (2020)
Listening to a debate between Stephen Douglas and Jefferson Davis in February 1859, Georgia senator Alfred Iverson told his colleagues, “If we permit these gentlemen to go on brandying arguments...