The Front Line
Our communal blog featuring the latest in Civil War news, research, analysis, and events from a network of historians
Published: 6/21/22
The Five Best Books on Lincoln and His Commanders
Library of Congress Abraham Lincoln was not a military man, yet in March 1861 he became commander in chief of forces that would soon face the task of suppressing an...
Published: 6/14/22
Grand Opening of American Civil War Museum’s Robins Theater
American Civil War Museum We recently asked Jeniffer Maloney, director of marketing and public relations at American Civil War Museum, about their new Robins Theater opening this month. She gave...
Published: 6/13/22
Ticks in Camp
The Diary of a Young Officer Serving with the Armies of the United States During the War of the Rebellion (1909) Josiah M. Favill, 57th New York Infantry Josiah M....
Published: 6/3/22
Eyewitness to Cold Harbor
Meade’s Headquarters, 1863–1865 (1922) Colonel Theodore Lyman Between May 31 and June 12, 1864, the armies of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee clashed near Mechanicsville, Virginia, in the...
Published: 5/23/22
Quick Picks: Civil War Photography Books
Library of Congress A Civil War photographer and his tent. Looking for good books on Civil War photography? We asked Ronald S. Coddington, author and publisher of Military Images magazine,...
Published: 4/28/22
The Books That Built Me: Brian Matthew Jordan
SHAWNA SHERRELL Brian Matthew Jordan I suppose you could say that I started researching my recently published book, Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War, when I was...
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...