The Front Line
Our communal blog featuring the latest in Civil War news, research, analysis, and events from a network of historians
Published: 8/26/24
Extra Voices: Killing the Enemy
In the Voices section of our Summer 2024 issue we highlighted quotes by Union and Confederate soldiers that revealed their thoughts about killing the enemy. Unfortunately, we didn’t have room...
Published: 8/23/24
The Coffee Wagon
In 1863, Philadelphia pharmacist Jacob Dunton designed and built a coffee wagon he then donated to the United States Christian Commission (USCC), an organization whose volunteers (known as “delegates”) provided...
Published: 8/19/24
Rivers Running Red
What does the mighty Mississippi have in common with the Potomac and Stones rivers? According to those who carve monuments and write local histories, on at least one occasion, all...
Published: 8/16/24
Death of a Patriotic Lady
In 1865, the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC), an organization whose volunteer members had worked to support sick and wounded Union troops during the conflict, published a book titled Soldiers’...
Published: 8/5/24
The Power of Place in Public History
How do we interact with the places around us? How did people in the past interact with these places? These are questions that pop into my mind when I am...
Published: 7/22/24
Reporting on the Defeated South
Travel accounts from the immediate aftermath of the Civil War illuminate social, economic, and political conditions in the former Confederacy. Among the best are John Richard Dennett’s The South As...
Published: 7/15/24
An Emotional Welcome Home
Ten days after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, 19-year-old Susan Bradford recorded the reaction she and her family...
Published: 7/8/24
The New York City Draft Riots
In mid-July 1863, days after Union forces secured a victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, residents of Lower Manhattan began to riot in protest over enforcement of a previously enacted...
Published: 7/1/24
The Forgotten Men: Veterans of the Indian Wars
The confluence of Civil War memory and the historical legacy of the postbellum Indian wars has not received substantial attention from historians. But in the American West the two inevitably...
Published: 6/24/24
Second Thoughts of a “Self-Reliant” Woman
By the summer of 1865, Mary Putnam, 22, had blazed an impressive trail in life. The daughter of a successful American publisher-father (George) and English mother (Victoria), Mary grew up...
Published: 6/17/24
The Civil War’s Epidemics
It’s well-known that the Civil War was the United States’ deadliest conflict. Between 750,000 and 1 million Americans died, shockingly high figures that still drive interest in the conflict more...
Published: 6/10/24
Extra Voices: Civil War Homecomings
In the Voices section of our Spring 2024 issue we highlighted quotes by Union and Confederate soldiers and civilians about the homecomings that occurred at the end of the...
Published: 6/3/24
McClellan’s Culture of Command
George B. McClellan profoundly affected the course of the Civil War. His inexplicable retreat following a major victory at Malvern Hill in July 1862 undoubtedly lengthened the conflict and, to...
Published: 5/20/24
Remembering a Pennsylvanian Who Fell at the Battle of Wauhatchie
Earthmovers and developers long ago carved up the Wauhatchie battlefield where Lieutenant Edward Ratchford Geary of Independent Battery E, Pennsylvania Light Artillery (known as Knap’s Battery) took a bullet in...
Published: 5/13/24
A Hospital Steward’s Story
During the Siege of Port Hudson in 1863—part of the Union military’s attempt to seize control of the Mississippi River—James Kendall Hosmer, a soldier in the 52nd Massachusetts Infantry,...
Published: 4/29/24
What Is Public History?
What is public history? What makes it “public?” How is it different from the history concentration in a school catalog? What sets public historians apart from academics? These are all...
Published: 4/22/24
War Poems of “Howard Glyndon”
In 1864, 25-year-old Maryland native Laura Catherine Redden published her first book of poetry, Idyls of Battle, and Poems of the Rebellion. Redden, who had lost her hearing at age...
Published: 4/15/24
The Myth of the Civil War Sniper
What do Union generals John Reynolds, William Sanders, Stephen Weed, and John Sedgwick have in common? According to traditional historiography, each man was killed by a sharpshooter who targeted him,...