Blog
Published: 5/16/12
The Allstons of Chicora Wood (2011)
The Allstons of Chicora Wood is an interesting and frustrating book. What began as a standard biography of antebellum South Carolina governor and rice planter Robert F.W. Allston, evolved over the...
Published: 5/16/12
Ministers and Masters (2011)
Over the last several decades, scholars of the antebellum South have deepened our understanding of the influence of honor and masculinity on the region’s history. Their studies have not only...
Published: 5/15/12
The Battle of Drury’s Bluff
The morning of May 15, 1862 set up to be another feather in the cap of the U.S. Navy following her victories at Port Royal, South Carolina (November, 1861) and...
Published: 5/15/12
John Mackie: The Man and the Memory
One rarely thinks of the United States Marine Corps and the Civil War in the same thought. Given their small size and limited service, this is not really surprising. And...
Published: 5/14/12
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
The following Walt Whitman poem—“Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night”—reminds us of the tangible, human costs of war. Whitman often found the indiscriminate carnage and wholesale anonymity...
Published: 5/11/12
The “Light Guard”
Good Morning! Today’s Friday Funny is an 1861 Harper’s Weekly cartoon. Entitled “Costume Suggested for the Brave Stay-at-Home Light Guard,” this sketch mockingly questions the masculinity of Union men who...
Published: 5/9/12
A Secret Society History of the Civil War (2011)
When historians of the Civil War think about wartime “secret societies,” various fundamental questions commonly emerge: Who were these people? How numerous were they? What did they believe? What was...
Published: 5/5/12
…And They’re Off..
In honor of the Kentucky Derby, we bring you this image of Civil War era horse racing (courtesy of Frank Leslie). While not a Stakes Race, this image is from...
Published: 5/4/12
The Blockade on the “Connecticut Plan”
Good Morning! To celebrate the end of another long work week, we bring you a “Friday Funny.” Today’s Civil War era cartoon is an 1862 Currier & Ives sketch entitled,...
Published: 5/2/12
CONFEDERATE OUTLAW (2011)
Scholarly interest in Civil War guerrillas has burgeoned over the past decade and, with the sesquicentennial in full swing, more guerrilla-related titles will likely roll off the presses in the...
Published: 5/2/12
John Bell Hood (2010)
The Civil War destroyed John Bell Hood’s life. After spending several years on the Texas frontier as a rising young officer in the pre-war U. S. Cavalry, the Kentuckian made...
Published: 5/1/12
Revising, Refreshing, Evolving Battlefield Interpretation
As a youngster, I visited Shiloh National Military Park on a number of occasions. Given my fondness for artillery, it should be no surprise that the “Ruggles Battery” tour stop...
Published: 4/30/12
The Dying Confederate’s Last Words
The following poem from the Civil War Song Sheets collection highlights the sacrifice made by individual Civil War soldiers. It’s entitled, “The Dying Confederate’s Last Words.” Dear comrades on my...
Published: 4/27/12
Bowling with Beauregard
Good afternoon! Here’s a little Friday Funny to celebrate the end of the work week. Published in the April 26, 1862 edition of Harper’s Weekly, this Justin Howard cartoon celebrates...
Published: 4/26/12
Was Confederate Conscription an Instrument of Social Justice?
Last week brought the sesquicentennial of the first Confederate Conscription Act. The draft would later become a particularly divisive element in the Confederacy (as it also became in the North),...
Published: 4/26/12
Introducing “Iron Men Afloat” – A New Series on the Civil War Navy
Good morning! I am sure many of you noticed that yesterday we posted a two-part series on the fall of New Orleans (April 25th, 1862). Part 1: “The Men and...
Published: 4/25/12
The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader (2010)
The great mnemonic power of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy has been in its ability to uphold almost all of the original tenets of its long-standing mythologies (the war...
Published: 4/25/12
Slavery’s Ghost (2011)
A brief but thought-provoking collection of essays that brings together lectures delivered at the University of Sussex’s Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the Study of the American South, Slavery’s Ghost is framed...