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On May 24, 1861, 24-year-old Elmer E. Ellsworth—colonel of the 11th New York Infantry—was shot and killed by the pro-secessionist proprietor of the Marshall House, an inn located in Alexandria, Virginia, after the young officer removed a Confederate flag that flew from its roof. Ellsworth, who had risen to fame before the war while touring the country with his military drill team, the Zouave ...

Troy D. Harman returns with another contemplative treatment of the summer of 1863 in "All Roads Led to Gettysburg."

Candice Shy Hooper’s "Delivered Under Fire" gives students of the conflict a greater appreciation for one of its more fascinating individuals.

John Cimprich's "Navigating Liberty" gives thorough attention to the most important subjects in the literature on the transition from slavery to freedom.

Mike Pride's "Storm Over Key West" interrogates the social, political, and racial dynamics of the island from the 1840s into the early phases of Reconstruction.

Neither blind to the general's foibles nor taken by the Lost Cause caricatures, Derek D. Maxfield's "Man of Fire" renders a human portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman.

In "The Democratic Collapse," Lauren N. Haumesser contends that gender was a fountainhead of political contention in the antebellum United States.

MacKenzie's thoughtfully researched and lucidly argued "The Fifth Border State" offers a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding West Virginia's formation.

Mark Power Smith's "Young America" challenges our framework for understanding the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War.

On March 30, 1861, Harper's Weekly published the following image to mark April Fool's Day. An accompanying report reads in part: