Blogs

Katherine Bentley Jeffrey's "First Chaplain of the Confederacy" reminds us of the nuanced role Catholics played in the Confederate and Reconstruction South.

It’s safe to say that while many Americans take a great interest in the battles and leaders of the Civil War, far fewer are familiar with the events of Reconstruction, the dozen years after the conflict. Moreover, much of what people do know about this time—when the federal government attempted to rebuild the country and define the meaning of freedom for millions of former slaves—comes from...

Michael Smith's "In The Shadow of Gold" is a historical novel for our own challenging times.

National Archives staffer Bryan Cheeseboro keeps finding ways to touch history.

Artist Edwin Forbes was present to sketch the elaborate St. Patrick's Day festivities that were held in the camp of the Irish Brigade in 1863.

Deborah Willis' "The Black Civil War Soldier" is a reminder of one of the most compelling stories of the conflict: the efforts of more than 180,000 African American soldiers to fight for freedom.

Bruce Levine's "Thaddeus Stevens" is the first major biography of The Great Commoner in nearly a quarter century.

"On Rising Ground" is a well-researched, well-written, and always empathetic account of a very ordinary soldier and his family.

We would like to believe that Civil War letters transport us back to the historical reality of the camp and the battlefield. These letters are not, however, transparent windows into the past. They are products of men struggling to depict a situation that was radically different than anything they had endured before. We would also like to believe that soldiers wrote candidly about what they were...

An effective antidote to the Lost Cause, Ty Seidule's "Robert E. Lee and Me" deserves both a wide readership and a place on undergraduate syllabi.

In "Ambitious Honor," James Mueller has managed to find something new to say about George Armstrong Custer.

With "Bonds of Salvation," Ben Wright has convincingly demonstrated the importance of religious denominations to the lives of early Americans and the nation as a whole.

Benjamin T. Arrington's "The Last Lincoln Republican" is a superb new study of Garfield's dark horse race for the Executive Mansion.

Stephen M. Hood's "Patriots Twice" seeks to highlight the postwar lives and accomplishments of 220 Confederate veterans.

The diligent, robust scholarship found on the pages of David A. Powell and Eric J. Wittenberg's "Tullahoma" has expanded the historiography and helped to further balance perspectives on the relative importance of the Western Theater.

Michael Smith's "The Thin Gray Line" offers a new look at the darker side of the war.

Readers and scholars with wide-ranging interests will find Thomas F. Curran's "Women Making War" useful and fascinating.

In "Absalom Hazlett," Spencer Sadler has unearthed and conveyed a valuable story about a captivating and overlooked subject.

A southerner finds clarity in a tangle of loyalties ...

Comprehensive is perhaps the best adjective to describe Neil P. Chatelain's "Defending the Arteries of Rebellion."