Blog
Published: 5/27/13
Captain Kit Dalton on Guerrilla Memory, Civility, and the Rules of War
In spring 1880, more than a decade after his famous—or perhaps infamous, locale depending—“March to the Sea,” Union General William Tecumseh Sherman observed of a large gathering in Columbus, Ohio,...
Published: 5/24/13
An Interview with John Marszalek
Our conversation with Dr. John Marszalek, the Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. Dr. Marszalek is also the Giles...
Published: 5/22/13
America on the Eve of the Civil War (2010)
At first glance, America on the Eve of the Civil War: A Virginia Sesquicentennial Signature Conference stands apart from most edited volumes both in aim and in organization. Essentially a transcription...
Published: 5/22/13
Andrew Johnson’s Civil War (2011)
Few Presidents have witnessed as drastic a historiographical shift as Andrew Johnson. Hailed in the early twentieth-century as both a defender of the Constitution and a steadfast barrier to Congressional...
Published: 5/22/13
Mending Broken Soldiers (2012)
The American Civil War acted like a battering ram on the human body. Debilitating diseases incapacitated soldiers for weeks and months. Gleaming bayonet blades, soaring shrapnel and shells and leaden...
Published: 5/20/13
Grant and the Forgotten Court of Inquiry
During the siege of Vicksburg, General U. S. Grant had to deal with racial problems, but those problems were always a lower priority than his main goal—the capture of Vicksburg....
Published: 5/17/13
An Interview with William A. Link
Our interview with William A. Link, author of Atlanta, Cradle of the New South: Race and Remembering in the Civil War’s Aftermath published by the University of North Carolina...
Published: 5/15/13
Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (2013)
When I received my review copy of Allen C. Guelzo’s Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, I asked myself, “does the world need another one-volume history of Gettysburg?” Recent fine monographs on...
Published: 5/13/13
“The Most Fatal of All Acute Diseases:” Pneumonia and the Death of Stonewall Jackson
Library of Congress As night fell and a full moon rose in the sky, Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was becoming increasingly impatient. Although he had just orchestrated one...
Published: 5/10/13
An Interview with CWI’s Peter Carmichael
Our interview with Peter Carmichael, the Robert C. Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies and Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. Pete offers his thoughts on the...
Published: 5/8/13
Becoming Confederates (2013)
Much of the work of the historian comes down to explaining what drove historic actors to behave as they did. For Civil War historians the questions are unusually thorny, and...
Published: 5/6/13
An Excerpt from Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front
It’s easy to miss what remains of the Salem Church battlefield, and if not for the stone statues that stand sentinel next to the roadway, you might not know there’s...
Published: 5/3/13
An Interview with Wayne E. Motts
Our interview with Wayne E. Motts, the CEO of the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In this conversation, Motts discusses the current and future exhibits of the museum...
Published: 5/1/13
Freedom National (2012)
James Oakes has received high praise for his Lincoln Prize winning Freedom National: the Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. When an eminent nineteenth-century historian tackles this topic...
Published: 4/30/13
A Civil War Era Royal Wedding
Much like the Anglophiles of today, Civil War-era Americans were fascinated by the British royal family. Rather than obsessing over William, Kate, and Harry, nineteenth century Americans celebrated the marriage...
Published: 4/30/13
Civil War Desserts
Confederate Apple Pie Without The Apples Ingredients: 1 ¾ cups of water 2 cups of sugar 2 tablespoons cream of tarter 2 tablespoons lemon juice Grated zest of one lemon...
Published: 4/29/13
“The Grandest Charity in the Country:” The Missouri Home For Confederate Veterans
In the decades immediately following the Civil War, Missourians expressed concern for the plight of their aging and ill Confederate veterans. In response, the Ex-Confederate Association of Missouri formed in...
Published: 4/26/13
An Interview with Jeff Rosenheim
Our conversation with Jeff Rosenheim, the Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In this interview, Jeff discusses...