Blog
Published: 9/15/17
The Search for Orville Wheelock
The Boys in White Julia Wheelock One hundred fifty-five years ago this month, 28-year-old Michigan resident Julia Wheelcock learned that her brother, Orville, a soldier in the 8th Michigan Infantry,...
Published: 9/13/17
WALDSTREICHER & MASON: John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery (2016)
John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from the Diary by David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason. Oxford University Press, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0199947959. $29.95. The past twenty years have...
Published: 9/8/17
Robert E. Lee, Confederate Memorials, and the Burden of the Past
By Cville dog – Own work, Wikimedia Commons The Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park On August 13, a statue of Robert E. Lee took center stage in...
Published: 9/6/17
PITTMAN: Rebels in the Rockies (2014)
Rebels in the Rockies: Confederate Irregulars in the Western Territories by Walter Earl Pittman. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-0786478200. $39.95. In 2000, in an article in Civil War History, Daniel...
Published: 8/30/17
EGERTON: Thunder at the Gates (2016)
Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America by Douglas R. Egerton. Basic Books, Cloth, ISBN: 978-0465096640. $32.00. Douglas R. Egerton, professor of History at Le Moyne College, has spent...
Published: 8/30/17
MEZUREK: For Their Own Cause (2016)
For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops by Kelly D. Mezurek. The Kent State University Press, 2016. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1606352892. $37.95. Kelly D. Mezurek’s study of the 27th...
Published: 8/25/17
The Civil War as a Home Invasion
Spoiler Alert: This article, which appears in the Fall 2017 issue of The Civil War Monitor, will discuss major plot points in the 2017 film The Beguiled. The Beguiled may...
Published: 8/23/17
EMBERTON & BAKER (eds.): Remembering Reconstruction (2017)
Remembering Reconstruction: Struggles Over the Meaning of America’s Most Turbulent Era edited by Carole Emberton and Bruce E. Baker. Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Cloth, IBSN: 978-0807166024. $43.50. For nearly two decades, David...
Published: 8/16/17
BETIT: War’s Cost (2016)
War’s Cost: The Hites’ Civil War by Eugene DeFriest Bétit. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016. Paper, IBSN: 978-1530062713. $15.00. By observing individual historical actors, a historian may reveal additional knowledge about...
Published: 8/16/17
FRAZIER: Blood on the Bayou (2015)
Blood on the Bayou: Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and the Trans-Mississippi by Donald S. Frazier. State House Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1933337630. $39.99. Donald S. Frazier, a professor of History at McMurry University,...
Published: 8/11/17
A Bad Day on the March
Wisconsin Historical Society Surgeon Alfred Lewis Castleman, 5th Wisconsin Infantry After it was thwarted in its attempt to capture Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign in the summer of 1862, the...
Published: 8/9/17
EPPS: Slavery on the Periphery (2016)
Slavery on the Periphery: The Kansas-Missouri Border in the Antebellum and Civil War Years by Kristen Epps. University of Georgia Press, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0820350509. $59.95. When we think about the places...
Published: 8/4/17
Gettysburg: The Army’s Living Classroom
Brigadier General (Ret.) John W. Mountcastle Cadets from West Point take in the view of the battlefield from Little Round Top during a Gettysburg staff ride. During any visit to...
Published: 8/2/17
CAMPI: Civil War Battlefields (2016)
Civil War Battlefields: Then and Now by James Campi, Jr. Pavilion Books, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1-9109048-0-0. $19.95. Celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner noted at the conflict’s end that his work...
Published: 7/28/17
Extra Dossier: Grant
Library of Congress General Ulysses S. Grant In 2014, we asked a panel of leading Civil War historians a series of questions about General Ulysses S. Grant—a way of assessing...
Published: 7/26/17
FILIPOWSKI & HARRINGTON: The Boy Soldier (2016)
The Boy Soldier: Edwin Jemison and the Story Behind the Most Remarkable Portrait of the Civil War by Alexandra Filipowski and Hugh T. Harrington. Westholme Publishing, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1-59416-264-0. $26.00....
Published: 7/21/17
Eyewitness to Bull Run
War Letters of William Thompson Lusk (1911) William Thompson Lusk, 79th New York Infantry A week after the Battle of Bull Run—a humiliating defeat for Union forces—23-year-old officer William Thompson...
Published: 7/19/17
KASTENBERG: A Confederate in Congress (2016)
A Confederate in Congress: The Civil War Treason Trial of Benjamin Gwinn Harris by Joshua E. Kastenberg. McFarland & Company, 2016. Paper, IBSN: 978-1476664897. $35.00. In the weeks following the chaos...