Blog
Published: 11/26/12
“Not Since the Days of William the Conquerer” – Anti-War Democrats of Ohio in their Own Words
For me, one of the great joys of researching and writing about Civil War history is “reading other people’s mail.” Whether in archives, digitized sources online, or in books, reading...
Published: 11/21/12
Lincoln and the Election of 1860 (2011)
This volume, part of a series entitled “The Concise Lincoln Library,” focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s role in the momentous events of 1860—the Republican presidential nomination in May, and his subsequent...
Published: 11/16/12
An Interview with Clay Risen
Our conversation with Clay Risen, editor of the New York Times Disunion blog. In this interview, Clay discusses the origins of the online version of the blog, the benefits...
Published: 11/12/12
Lincoln (2012) [Take 1]
It is long past time for historians to abandon the expectation that historical films will be historically accurate down to their most minute detail. Achieving this kind of authenticity is...
Published: 11/11/12
Wither Liberia? Civil War Emancipation and Freedmen Resettlement in West Africa
On a late October morning in 1862 the U.S. Treasury department received a visit from Robert J. Walker. The former Mississippi senator was something of an enigma in war-torn Washington—an...
Published: 11/7/12
Lee and His Generals (2012)
A new collection of essays explores the distinguished historian T. Harry Williams and topics shaped by his work. Editors Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott have crafted Lee and...Published: 11/2/12
An Interview with Cathy Wright
Our conversation with Cathy Wright, curator for the Museum of the Confederacy. In her interview, Cathy discusses her responsibilities at the MOC, the new MOC branch at Appomattox, and...
Published: 10/31/12
War’s Desolating Scourge (2012)
War’s Desolating Scourge is a fascinating study of the Federal occupation of North Alabama, and the continued defiance of loyal Confederates in the face of shifting political and military aims. Much...
Published: 10/29/12
The Peace Monument At Appomattox, UDC, and Reconstruction
In May 1932, Mary Davidson Carter, a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) from Upperville, Virginia, was angry. She had just learned that the federal government was...Published: 10/26/12
An Interview with Barbara Gannon
Our interview with Barbara Gannon, Assistant Professor of Military History at the University of Central Florida and author of The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand...
Published: 10/24/12
The Peninsula Campaign (2012)
The subject of African Americans fighting for the South tends to generate two polar responses: either it’s a neo-Confederate fantasy with no more legitimacy than Holocaust denial, or it’s a...Published: 10/19/12
An Interview with Lisa Brady
Our interview with Lisa Brady, Associate Professor of History at Boise State University and author of War Upon the Land: Military Strategy and the Transformation of Southern Landscapes during...Published: 10/12/12
An Interview with Anne Rubin
Our interview with Anne Rubin, Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Rubin is the author of A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of...
Published: 10/10/12
The Tribunal (2012)
The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid is a welcome addition to a small collection of Brown readers, including another by editors John Stauffer and Zoe Trodd, Meteor...
Published: 10/8/12
The Myth of the H.L. Hunley’s Blue Lantern
When the Confederate H.L. Hunley engaged the USS Housatonic on February 17, 1864, she made history as the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. She also sparked one of...
Published: 10/5/12
An Interview with Kevin Levin
Our interview with historian Kevin Levin. Kevin maintains the popular blog “Civil War Memory” and is the author of Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War As Murder, now...
Published: 10/3/12
Decided on the Battlefield (2012)
Author David Alan Johnson, a biographer of J. Edgar Hoover, makes his first foray into Civil War history with this vivid though ultimately flawed account of Lincoln’s re-election campaign and...
Published: 10/1/12
The Consequences of Damning the Torpedoes
Rear Adm. David Farragut famously “damned the torpedoes” when he closed off the port of Mobile as a haven for blockade runners. But the Union navy’s and army’s final push...