Blogs

After the outbreak of the Civil War, 25-year-old artist Winslow Homer traveled to the front to sketch scenes of the conflict's participants and engagements for Harper's Weekly, the country's premier illustrated newspaper. Though young, Homer, who had sketched for Harper's for years before the start of hostilities, had already established himself as a skilled illustrator with a keen eye for...

On August 14, 1861, the sense of anger and disgruntlement that had been building among the men of the largely Scottish-American 79th New York Infantry "Highlanders" boiled over. The rank and file of the regiment, which had suffered one of the highest number of casualties among Union units engaged in the recent Battle of Bull Run (including the death of their colonel, James Cameron, brother to the...

If surrender never quite 'defined' the war, this book makes clear that it unquestionably suffused it.

In his latest book, "Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth" (to be published this fall by the University of North Carolina Press), Boston-based historian and educator Kevin M. Levin tackles the enduring

Bierle never loses sight of the fact that the battle did not occur in some remote hinterland, but rather in a larger community.

Chickamauga was a grim first outing for the Alabamians.

Anyone who has spent considerable time in research libraries or logging onto digital archives knows what it feels like to come to the end of an evidentiary road. A promising file of letters reveals huge gaps in the writers’ correspondence. A tantalizing detail in a census record leads nowhere. A diary entry ends with a page torn out. Historians must make what they can of such incomplete evidence...

In July 1861, only months after the outbreak of the Civil War, Belle Boyd—the 17-year-old daughter of a prosperous family in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia)—experienced a traumatic event that helped spur her to become a spy for the Confederacy. Boyd told the story of the incident—excerpted below—in her 1865 autobiography, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison, a book considered by...

Reidy does not see a single point, a single event, or a single historical figure as responsible for emancipation.

Unable to compel Sherman to attack, Hood trundled west into Alabama and changed his objective.

The author shows how a superior general staff...helped wrest the initiative away from Lee's army as the war in the Eastern Theater dragged on.

[S]tands at the edge of a field of historical inquiry that is sure to gain greater currency among historians...

Between July 25 and July 1, 1862, George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia battled on the outskirts of Richmond. The fate of the capital of the Confederacy lay in the balance. A decisive Union victory could have resulted in the capture of Richmond—and likely the end of the rebellion. But Lee's outnumbered Rebels outperformed their opponents during...

Much like Alcott's work, Seiple's narrative leaps off the page.

...a marvelous book that contains fascinating analysis about French diplomacy...demonstrates how historians have too long made France into a junior partner of Great Britain.

We recently asked a panel of Civil War historians a series of questions about Major General James Ewell Brown "J.E.B." Stuart—a way of assessing the flamboyant cavalier's record and legacy today. And while the results were published in our Summer 2019 issue (“Dossier: J.E.B. Stuart,” Vol. 9, No. 2), space prevented us from providing all of our panelists’ answers in full detail. Below are...

Weaver's writings provide rare insight into the complexities of the prisoner of war experience.

We have lost a singular voice in the field of popular history.