Blog
Published: 4/1/23
April-Fool’s Day
On March 30, 1861, Harper’s Weekly published the following image to mark April Fool’s Day. An accompanying article reads in part: We publish on the preceding page a picture of...
Published: 3/31/23
Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 6
This installment in the series focuses on the top leadership of the cavalry. The three titles include the correspondence of James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, by far the most important...
Published: 3/29/23
Unsung Hero of Gettysburg (2021)
When it comes to cavalry commanders at the Battle of Gettysburg, several figures—Stuart, Custer, and Buford, to name a few—instantly come to mind. Despite an admirable record, one federal divisional...
Published: 3/24/23
Extra Voices: Battle Fatigue
National Archives In the Voices section of our Spring 2023 issue we highlighted quotes about the onset of battle fatigue among soldiers in the Union and Confederate armies. Unfortunately, we...
Published: 3/22/23
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius (2022)
Plenty of people who study the Civil War have heard accounts of Lincoln testing out the new, breech-loading Spencer repeating rifle behind the Executive Mansion. Was this a one-off event,...
Published: 3/15/23
The End of Public Execution (2022)
One of the most enduring symbols of state violence in the New South is the electric chair, a gruesome tool of capital punishment contained deep within the brick walls and...
Published: 3/9/23
Eyewitness to the Battle of Hampton Roads
Naval History and Heritage Command Lieutenant Samuel Dana Green During the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862—where the ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (Merrimac) fought to...
Published: 3/8/23
Civil Wars and Reconstructions in the Americas (2022)
Scholars of the U.S. Civil War era have done much over the past two decades to illuminate the transnational dimensions of the period. In particular, they have shown that the...
Published: 3/6/23
“When the Boys Come Home”
Harper’s Weekly Lincoln’s secretary John Hay In June 1864, Harper’s Weekly published the following poem by John Hay, one of two personal secretaries to President Abraham Lincoln. Hay, 25 at...
Published: 3/2/23
Mourning the Presidents (2023)
In this accessible and engaging volume, noted presidential historians Lindsay M. Chervinsky and Matthew R. Costello assemble a dozen essays that treat how our nation’s commanders in chief have been...
Published: 2/24/23
The Books That Built Me: Joan Waugh
DIANA LUNDIN Joan Waugh “There is properly no history; only biography.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Narrowing down a list of “books that built me” was surprisingly difficult. The books finally selected,...
Published: 2/23/23
Their Maryland (2021)
By late September 1862, the soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia were frustrated. One Virginia private cursed the “infernal” Potomac River, and a Georgia sergeant told his fiancée he...
Published: 2/22/23
Administering Freedom (2022)
Administering Freedom opens by recalling William Baltimore’s interview with a member of the Federals Writers’ Project in the late 1930s. Baltimore fled to the Union Army in 1863, enlisted in the...
Published: 2/20/23
The Union Forever (2012)
We are currently in the midst of a U.S. Grant renaissance. Recent studies by Brooks Simpson, Jean Smith, Joan Waugh and H.W. Brands have sought to rehabilitate the reputation of...
Published: 2/15/23
Lady Rebels of Civil War Missouri (2022)
In Lady Rebels of Civil War Missouri, Larry Wood takes readers into the most complex and contentious period of Missouri’s history to detail the lives of seventeen female Confederate sympathizers....
Published: 2/10/23
Civil War Emojis
The May 23, 1863, issue of Harper’s Weekly ran the following ad by E.P. Gleason, a New York-based manufacturer. The ad, which promoted Gleason’s “Kerosine Crater,” an attachment to be...
Published: 2/8/23
Gettysburg’s Southern Front (2022)
Thousands of books have been written about the Gettysburg Campaign, yet talented scholars with fresh insights continue to prove the last has not been said about our most studied military...
Published: 2/1/23
I Saw Death Coming (2023)
The process of Reconstruction after the Civil War is one of the most critical, yet ambiguous periods of US history. One of the key reasons why Reconstruction has remained so...