Blog
Published: 10/1/23
Published: 9/27/23
Heartsick and Astonished (2023)
Historians have long been interested in the Civil War’s impact on families—particularly how wives transformed into widows and children made fatherless by what occurred on the battlefield mourned, coped, and...
Published: 9/25/23
Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 8
DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University Soldiers of the Texas Brigade Putting this series together has been enjoyable but also frustrating. None of the retrospective literature created by soldiers in the...
Published: 9/20/23
Lincoln Illuminated and Remembered (2023)
Across a career spanning nearly six decades, historian William C. Harris has produced important books on virtually every facet of the sixteenth president’s life, ranging from his political ascent (Lincoln’s...
10
Published: 9/15/23
Hints to Soldiers
The Soldier in Our Civil War, a multi-volume work about the Civil War published in 1893, showcases many of the illustrations that appeared during the conflict in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. The...
Published: 9/13/23
Consent in the Presence of Force (2023)
Consent in the Presence of Force analyzes “the lives, labors, and legal battles of girls and women whose enslavement was defined by sexual service” (9). Emily A. Owens, currently David and...
Published: 9/6/23
Private No More (2023)
What makes Private No More: The Civil War Letters of John Lovejoy Murray, 102nd United States Colored Infantry an unusual book? First, letters from a private in an African American regiment are...
Published: 8/30/23
The Battle of Gettysburg 1863 (2023)
Osprey Publishing has long set the standard for handsomely illustrated volumes of military history, and the latest in their growing Civil War series, Timothy J. Orr’s The Battle of Gettysburg:...
Published: 8/25/23
Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 7
A LIFE OF GEN. ROBERT E. LEE (1876) In a postwar illustration, Robert E. Lee is depicted leading his men at Gettysburg. Three books containing Robert E. Lee’s testimony provide...
Published: 8/23/23
The Demands of Justice (2023)
The Demands of Justice examines “the lives of enslaved women accused of capital crimes to understand how slavery and its corresponding laws and social customs worked to criminalize them and limit...
Published: 8/18/23
President Garfield (2023)
He was the first front porch campaigner and the last president born in a log cabin. After eking by former Union general Winfield Scott Hancock with the closest popular vote...
Published: 8/9/23
The Grimkes (2022)
Among the leading African American professionals at the turn of the 20th century were brothers Archibald and Francis Grimke. The former served as U.S. consul to the Dominican Republic, while...
Published: 8/2/23
Small But Important Riots (2023)
By the author’s own admission, Small but Important Riots has been a lifetime commitment. “Nearly thirty years of continuing research into the events that transpired in and around the Loudoun Valley...
Published: 7/26/23
Colonel Hans Christian Heg (2023)
Tens of thousands of foreign-born and first- or second-generation immigrants served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Historians have focused extensively on large immigrant groups, like the Germans...
Published: 7/25/23
The Five Best Books on the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley
Library of Congress “Sheridan’s Final Charge at Winchester” by Thure de Thulstrup For the past two decades I have been fortunate to live in the place I research and write...
Published: 7/19/23
The Grammar of Civil War (2022)
Will Fowler, currently professor of Latin American studies at the University of St. Andrews, is a highly accomplished scholar of nineteenth century Mexico. His Santa Anna of Mexico offers a revisionist...
Published: 7/11/23
Without Concealment, Without Compromise (2023)
One might suppose there is nothing new to learn about the Civil War era. Jill L. Newmark’s splendid new monograph, Without Concealment, Without Compromise: The Courageous Lives of Black Civil...
Published: 7/10/23
Changing Times—And Names—at U.S. Military Bases
As an employee of the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense, I must support the official policies of these organizations, so what I write below represents my own personal...