Blog
Published: 12/26/12
A Taste For War (2011)
Historians have long tried to capture the experience of the common soldier ever since Bell Wiley wrote Johnny Reb (1943) and Billy Yank (1952). Since then they have described everything from their views...
Published: 12/18/12
The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory (2012)
Few infantry units in the Federal or Confederate armies match the Iron Brigade in reputation or accomplishment. Distinguishing themselves at the Brawner Farm, on South Mountain, during the Battle of...
Published: 12/12/12
The Great Heart of the Republic (2011)
Adam Arenson’s engaging study of mid-nineteenth-century St. Louis is a story of national potential and national failure. Located at the intersection of North, South, and West, St. Louis requires us...
Published: 12/10/12
Holiday Civil War Trivia Contest: Winner
Trivia Question: A skirmish at this place on October 29, 1862, is widely regarded as the first time black troops in the Union Blue engaged in combat during the Civil War. Correct...
Published: 12/5/12
Faces of the Civil War (2012)
Ron Coddington’s Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories grew out of his interests as a photographer and a collector of Civil War-era cartes de visite....
Published: 11/28/12
Lincoln (2012) [Take 2]
Movies can negatively shape popular perceptions of history. Birth of a Nation (1915) helped lead to the revival of the Klan. Gone with the Wind (1939) still shapes many peoples’ comprehensions of slavery. The...
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...