Blog
Published: 11/2/22
Black Suffrage (2022)
Paul Escott’s Black Suffrage focuses on Northern attitudes towards Black rights in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. As most other studies of this subject focus on other time periods...
Published: 10/31/22
Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 4
USAHEC Confederate corps commander James Longstreet Literature on the Army of Northern Virginia contains book-length testimony from four of the seven officers who commanded its infantry corps. These titles include...
Published: 10/26/22
Remembering Enslavement (2022)
When asked what characteristics define the regional identity of the U.S. South, many people the world over would point to its plantations. These centers of forced enslavement, brutal working conditions,...
Published: 10/19/22
James Montgomery (2022)
In one of the many memorable scenes in the 1989 film Glory, James Montgomery (played convincingly by actor Cliff De Young) orders Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick)...
Published: 10/17/22
September Suspense (2012)
Close students of Civil War military history are familiar with the long career and good work of Dennis E. Frye. As chief historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Frye’s...
Published: 10/12/22
Yours Affectionately, Osgood (2022)
After more than 150 years, there still exist collections of Civil War letters in need of discovery and transcription. The letters of Osgood Vose Tracy of the 122nd New York...
Published: 10/5/22
The War after the War (2022)
John Patrick Daly opens The War after the War with an account of the Battle of Liberty Place on September 14, 1874. This conflict pitted a biracial Republican police force, led...
Published: 9/28/22
Count the Dead (2022)
This little book packs a huge punch. It makes a powerful case that the project of counting the dead—both literally and figuratively—occupies the center of the historical enterprise. Data about...
Published: 9/28/22
Quick Picks: Sherman’s March Books
Library of Congress Looking to do some reading on William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea? We asked Bennett Parten, a professor of history at Georgia Southern University who is...
Published: 9/26/22
A Straggler
Harper’s Weekly “A Straggler” by Alfred R. Waud On March 28, 1863, Harper’s Weekly published Alfred R. Waud’s description, and associated illustration, of an army straggler—a class of soldier encountered...
Published: 9/21/22
The Families’ Civil War (2022)
Chasing the faint archival traces made by 185 Philadelphians who shouldered muskets in three African American Civil War regiments, Holly A. Pinheiro Jr.’s debut monograph renders legible the struggles of...
Published: 9/14/22
When Hell Came to Sharpsburg (2022)
When tallying the costs of Civil War battles, historians typically supply a register of soldiers killed, wounded, missing, or captured. Often, they consider how those losses resounded in hearts and...
Published: 9/12/22
“Union Jim” Williams
Harper’s Weekly “Union Jim” Williams The March 28, 1863, issue of Harper’s Weekly included the following article about, and illustration of, Jim Williams, a formerly enslaved man who assisted Union...
Published: 9/7/22
James Longstreet and the American Civil War (2022)
James Longstreet and the American Civil War argues that Longstreet’s post-Civil War defection to the Republican Party, rather than historical evidence, inspired many Confederate veterans and later historians to fault...
Published: 9/3/22
The Whartons’ War (2022)
“Emotion” is a key word for reading the Civil War letters of Confederate General Gabriel C. Wharton and his wife Anne Radford Wharton. In recent years, historians such as Michael...
Published: 8/31/22
W.G. (2022)
Donna and William Burtch’s W.G. explores the fascinating life of W.G. Raymond, a white Baptist preacher whose experiences included everything from service as a United States army officer in the Civil...
Published: 8/31/22
The Five Best Books on the Civil War in the (Far) West
Library of Congress On the first day of my American West in History and Film class, I ask students to explain where the historical West of their imaginations is located,...
Published: 8/24/22
Only the Clothes on Her Back (2022)
Princeton University Professor Laura F. Edwards is best known for her sterling work on the legal history of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Her ability to vividly portray the...