The Front Line
Our communal blog featuring the latest in Civil War news, research, analysis, and events from a network of historians
Published: 4/4/22
Braxton Bragg at McLemore’s Cove
Library of Congress General Braxton Bragg The art of command remains an elusive and complex concept for historians of the Civil War, and debates about command decisions and methods hold...
Published: 3/29/22
Voices From the Army of Northern Virginia, Part 3
A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1876) General Robert E. Lee rides among his troops during the Battle of Gettysburg. Several European journalists and military officers wrote about their...
Published: 3/21/22
Extra Voices: Mother Bickerdyke
USAHEC Mother Bickerdyke tends to a wounded soldier in the field. In the Voices section of the Spring 2022 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted quotes by and...
Published: 2/28/22
The Five Best Books on Civil War Memory
Library of Congress Union and Confederate veterans shake hands at the reunion to mark the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. In his 1948 novel Intruder in the Dust,...
Published: 1/18/22
Essential Reading on the Peninsula Campaign
anne s.k. brown military collection George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac on the move during the Peninsula Campaign In the spring and early summer of 1862, Union general George B....
Published: 1/13/22
Word-clouding the Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free”—went into effect. Below are...
Published: 1/12/22
GALLMAN: The Cacophony of Politics (2021)
The Cacophony of Politics: Northern Democrats and the American Civil War by J. Matthew Gallman. University of Virginia Press, 2021. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-8139-4656-6. $35.00. When Roy Franklin Nichols penned the...
Published: 1/4/22
Seeing the Elephant
Union soldier Francis M. Ingram “did not enjoy the 6 of April as well as I hav enjoyed some Sundays.”[2] On the banks of the Tennessee River, the “Rebel tide...
Published: 12/28/21
Benjamin F. Butler and Military Emancipation
National Archives Major General Benjamin F. Butler What if? This is the eternal question that so often confounds students of Civil War military history, and leads to groundless flights of...
Published: 12/17/21
Extra Voices: War’s Grisly Toll
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War In the Voices section of the Winter 2021 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted quotes by Union and Confederate soldiers about...
Published: 12/6/21
The Best Civil War Books of 2021
The Books & Authors section of our Winter 2021 issue contains our annual roundup of the year’s best Civil War titles. As usual, we’ve enlisted a handful of Civil War...
Published: 11/30/21
Prison Tales
Library of Congress Andersonville Prison in 1864 Looking to learn more about Civil War prisons and prisoners of war? We asked historian Brian Matthew Jordan to suggest a handful of...
Published: 11/4/21
Gettysburg Photo Mystery Solved?
With the help of an Artificial Intelligence-based, computerized color identifier and cutting-edge software that created a 3D rendering of McPherson Ridge in 1868, a group of Civil War detectives have...
Published: 10/25/21
The Best Civil War Novels
Library of Congress No event in American history has inspired more imaginative writing than the Civil War. Authors have made the struggle the subject of thousands of rhymes, songs, poems,...
Published: 10/18/21
Suits of Shoddy
Founded in 1818, Brooks Brothers of New York is the oldest clothing retailer in America. Even today, the name alone conjures images of fine silk neckties and Italian wool sportscoats—quality,...
Published: 9/27/21
The Five Best Books on Civil War Guerrillas
Library of Congress Two guerrillas stop a civilian rider to rob him in this sketch from a December 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly. “This Mr. Wales is a cold-blooded killer....
Published: 9/24/21
Mr. Gridley and His Sack of Flour
In the January 21, 1865, issue of Harper’s Weekly, the editors published a small story about a man from Nevada who had lost an election for city office—but gained national...
Published: 9/20/21
Unceasing Fury at Chickamauga
Fourteen hundred and 91 days in the Confederate Army (1953) W.W. Heartsill as he appeared after the Civil War The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 18–20, 1863, pitted William...