Blog
Published: 12/1/17
The History Seeker
Jennifer Gleason Library of Virginia archivist Renee Savits In 2010, Renee Savits faced a dilemma. A career archivist, Savits had been with the Library of Virginia for 11 years, rising...
Published: 11/29/17
LEPA: The Union Sixth Corps in the Shenandoah Valley (2016)
The Union Sixth Corps in the Shenandoah Valley, June-October 1864 by Jack H. Lepa. McFarland and Company, 2016. Paper, ISBN: 978-1476666297. $35.00. One year after the Civil War’s guns fell silent,...
Published: 11/22/17
CODDINGTON: Faces of the Civil War Navies (2016)
Faces of the Civil War Navies: An Album of Union and Confederate Sailors by Ronald S. Coddington. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1421421360. $32.95. There is a certain level of satisfaction...
Published: 11/17/17
Extra Voices: Hunger Pangs
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War In the Voices section of the Winter 2017 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted first-person quotes by Union and Confederate soldiers...
Published: 11/15/17
DIRCK: Lincoln in Indiana (2017)
Lincoln in Indiana by Brian R. Dirck. Southern Illinois University Press, 2017. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0809335657. $24.95. Historians and the general public alike have been fascinated with the life of Abraham Lincoln for...
Published: 11/10/17
The Best Civil War Books of All Time
What are the best Civil War history books ever published? We asked five top historians to give us their picks.
Published: 11/8/17
HURLEY: California and the Civil War (2017)
California and the Civil War by Richard Hurley. History Press, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-1625858245. $21.99. Richard Hurley, an active popular and public historian, has provided an engaging and accessible primer to the complexities...
Published: 11/3/17
Then and Now: How Civil War-Era Doctors Responded to Their Own Opiate Epidemic
USAHEC Nurse Annie Bell tends to wounded soldiers after the Battle of Nashville. Many injured troops, North and South, would become addicted to opiates. Hidden among the many headlines about...
Published: 11/1/17
FITZGERALD: Reconstruction in Alabama (2017)
Michael W. Fitzgerald, a professor of history at St. Olaf College, is a well-respected scholar who has published several books about Reconstruction. Reconstruction in Alabama is the product of many decades of...
Published: 10/25/17
QUIGLEY: Pure Heart (2016)
Pure Heart: The Faith of a Father and Son in the War for a More Perfect Union by William F. Quigley, Jr. Kent State University Press, 2016. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1606352861. $39.95. In...
Published: 10/20/17
A Ball’s Bluff Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society Captain Caspar Crowinshield, 20th Massachusetts Infantry On October 21, 1861, Union forces crossed the Potomac River to attack what they thought was a Confederate camp near Leesburg,...
Published: 10/18/17
DAVIS: All the Fighting They Want (2017)
All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City’s Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864 by Stephen Davis. Savas Beatie, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-1611213195. $14.95. In a 2007 Civil...
Published: 10/11/17
GREEN: McClellan and the Union High Command (2017)
McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863: Leadership Gaps That Cost a Timely Victory by Jeffrey W. Green. McFarland, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-1476665733. $35.00. Union strategy and command structure has become the...
Published: 10/4/17
HETTLE: The Confederate Homefront (2017)
The Confederate Homefront: A History in Documents by Wallace Hettle. Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-0807165720. $29.95. With the fate of Confederate monuments across the South being hotly contested,...
Published: 9/27/17
CRAIG & ULLRICH: Unconditional Unionist (2016)
Unconditional Unionist: The Hazardous Life of Lucian Anderson, Kentucky Congressman by Berry Craig and Deiter C. Ullrich. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016. Paper, ISBN: 978-1476663692. $35.00. Kentucky is the sphinx on...
Published: 9/23/17
Extra Voices: Sounds of War
Library of Congress Alfred R. Waud’s depiction of the Battle of Fredericksburg In the Voices department of our summer 2014 issue (Vol. 4, No. 2) we featured soldiers’ quotes that...
Published: 9/20/17
FOUGHT: Women in the World of Frederick Douglass (2017)
Women in the World of Frederick Douglass by Leigh Fought. Oxford University Press, 2017. Cloth, ISBN: 9780199782376. $29.95. In 1838, Anna Murray helped her future-husband escape slavery. Although circumscribed by gender and racism...
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 Wheelock learned that her brother, Orville, a soldier in the 8th Michigan Infantry,...