Published: 4/1/23April-Fool’s DayBy: Harper's WeeklyCategory: The Front Line 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: 3/31/23Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 6By: Gary W. GallagherCategory: The Front Line 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: 3/24/23Extra Voices: Battle FatigueBy: The Civil War MonitorCategory: The Front Line 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: 3/9/23Eyewitness to the Battle of Hampton RoadsBy: Samuel Dana GreenCategory: The Front Line 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: 3/6/23“When the Boys Come Home”By: John HayCategory: The Front Line 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: 2/24/23The Books That Built Me: Joan WaughBy: Joan WaughCategory: The Front Line 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: 2/10/23Civil War EmojisBy: The Civil War MonitorCategory: The Front Line 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: 1/28/23The Books That Built Me: George RableBy: George C. RableCategory: The Front Line BRYAN HESTER Historian George C. Rable I was not one of those precocious Civil War enthusiasts who started reading Bruce Catton at the age of 10. Even when I was...
Published: 1/9/23Josephine Miller and Her StoveBy: Charles Carleton CoffinCategory: The Front Line Marching To Victory (1888) Josephine Miller Slyder New Hampshire-born journalist Charles Carleton Coffin accompanied Winfield Scott Hancock and his II Corps of the Army of the Potomac during the Gettysburg...
Published: 12/12/22Emancipation’s TruthBy: Anthony J. Cade IICategory: The Front Line Apple TV+ Emancipation directed by Antoine Fuqua. Length: 2 hours, 12 minutes. Premiere: December 9, 2022. Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation could be one of this century’s great movies about self-emancipation. Not...
Published: 12/5/22Extra Voices: Army StragglersBy: The Civil War MonitorCategory: The Front Line Hard Tack and Coffee (1887) A straggler on the move In the Voices section of our Winter 2022 issue we highlighted quotes about “straggling” soldiers in the Union and Confederate...
Published: 11/29/22The Best Civil War Books of 2022By: The Civil War MonitorCategory: The Front Line The Books & Authors section of our Winter 2022 issue contains our annual roundup of the year’s best Civil War titles. As usual, we’ve enlisted a handful of Civil War...
Published: 11/21/22Extra Dossier: George G. MeadeBy: The Civil War MonitorCategory: The Front Line Library of Congress Major General George G. Meade For the Dossier section of our Fall 2022 issue, we asked a panel of Civil War historians a series of questions about...
Published: 11/18/22Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 5By: Gary W. GallagherCategory: The Front Line A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1876) Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg Four division commanders wrote letters that rival the best from anyone...
Published: 10/31/22Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 4By: Gary W. GallagherCategory: The Front Line 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: 9/28/22Quick Picks: Sherman’s March BooksBy: Bennett PartenCategory: The Front Line 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: 9/26/22A StragglerBy: Alfred WaudCategory: The Front Line 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: 9/12/22“Union Jim” WilliamsBy: Harper's WeeklyCategory: The Front Line 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: 8/31/22The Five Best Books on the Civil War in the (Far) WestBy: Matthew Christopher HulbertCategory: The Front Line 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: 8/22/22Extra Voices: A Thirst For BattleBy: The Civil War MonitorCategory: The Front Line Anne SK Brown Military Collection In the Voices section of our Fall 2022 issue we highlighted quotes about the thirst for battle that consumed many Union and Confederate soldiers. Unfortunately,...