Blog
Published: 9/19/12
Suite Harmonic (2011)
Emily Meier’s heavily researched Suite Harmonic: A Civil War Novel of Rediscovery imaginatively recounts the Given family history—in particular John Given Jr. and sister Catherine (Kate)—from 1862 through 1898. She narrates...
Published: 9/19/12
An Interview with Aaron Astor
Our interview with Aaron Astor, associate professor of history at Maryville College and author of Rebels on the Border published by Louisiana State University Press. Dr. Astor’s work examines...
Published: 9/17/12
The Battle For Freedom: Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln spent the late summer of 1862 waiting. Worrying and waiting. He was worrying about the war, which was not going well. And he was waiting for a victory...
Published: 9/16/12
Death and the Civil War (2012)
The camera pans across a photograph as voices you vaguely recognize speak the words of Americans long dead. Live action shots show rolling hills at dawn, shrouded in fog or...Published: 9/14/12
An Interview with Ric Burns
Our interview with Ric Burns, director of the new PBS documentary “Death and the Civil War.” Based on Drew Gilpin Faust’s “This Republic of Suffering,” Burns details the documentary, his...
Published: 9/12/12
War on the Waters (2012)
War on the Waters: The Union & Confederate Navies, 1861-1865, is a comprehensive account of naval operations during the American Civil War by prize-winning historian James McPherson. Union and Confederate...Published: 9/7/12
An Interview with Jim Downs
Our interview with Jim Downs, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Connecticut College and author of Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War...
Published: 9/5/12
Remembering the Battle of the Crater (2012)
In early November 1903, nearly 20,000 people gathered in Petersburg, Virginia, anxiously awaiting a reenactment of the Battle of the Crater. For one seventeen year old, Douglas Southall Freeman, the...Published: 8/31/12
An Interview with Keith Harris
The Civil War Monitor‘s interview with Keith Harris, host of “Cosmic America,” a Civil War multi-media platform. In the interview we discuss Keith’s goals with Cosmic America, other Civil...
Published: 8/29/12
The Mary Lincoln Enigma (2012)
On September 24, 2012, in Chicago, and on October 1 in Springfield, Mary Todd Lincoln will be retried on the charge of insanity. Perhaps she will fare better than at...
Published: 8/27/12
Bowdoin’s Other Civil War Sons
Discussions surrounding Bowdoin College and the Civil War invariably return to the famous Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine and the acts of his regiment at Gettysburg on July...Published: 8/24/12
An Interview with Elizabeth Leonard
Our interview with Elizabeth Leonard, the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History at Colby College and author of Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt...
Published: 8/24/12
Fathering Recruitment
Titled, “A Good Way for Fathers of Families to Aid Recruiting,” this July 1862 Harper’s Weekly cartoon is a playful take on Union recruitment efforts. (Yet, it is much more...
Published: 8/22/12
Ruin Nation (2012)
For the last quarter century scholars have worked to recover an essential and missing element of Civil War history: a fuller understanding of the destruction brought by the war. Megan...Published: 8/17/12
An Interview with Megan Kate Nelson
Our interview with Megan Kate Nelson, Lecturer of History and Literature at Harvard University and author of Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War now out with University...
Published: 8/17/12
Hercules of the Union
Happy Friday! Today’s Friday Funny is a celebration of Union General Winfield Scott—cast here as the mythical Hercules slaying a secessionist hydra. Aiding Scott in his epic battle is the...
Published: 8/15/12
Lincoln and the Constitution (2012)
In his contribution to Southern Illinois University Press’s “Concise Lincoln Library” series, historian Brian R. Dirck promises readers a book that is “relatively straightforward and basic: an overview of Lincoln’s...Published: 8/10/12
An introduction to “Behind the Lines” from your host David Thomson
Host David Thomson provides a brief welcome and introduction to “Behind the Lines,” The Civil War Monitor’s new video interview series with prominent members of the American Civil War...