Blogs

Evan Rothera's "Civil Wars and Reconstructions in the Americas" shifts focus away from Europe and centers the interconnected civil wars and reconstructions that transpired concurrently in the U.S., Mexico, and Argentina.

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 the time, remained with Lincoln until the president's assassination in April 1865. After the war, Hay remained active in politics, serving as secretary of state under President William McKinley. He died in 1905 at age 66.

Students of Civil War history have much to grapple with in "Mourning the Presidents," edited by Lindsay M. Chervinsky and Matthew R. Costello.

Narrowing down a list of “books that built me” was surprisingly difficult. The books finally selected, four biographies and one autobiography, stand as touchstones marking different periods of my intellectual enlightenment, framing a lifelong interest in using the biographical method to understand the past. Emerson’s above quotation held meaning for me almost as soon as I learned how to read...

Dale Kretz's "Administering Freedom" begins where some scholars have ended their accounts: the shuttering of the Freedom's Bureau in 1872.

In "Lady Rebels of Civil War Missouri," Larry Wood takes readers into the most complex and contentious period of the state's history...

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 used with a kerosine lamp, was ahead of its time, as evidenced by Gleason's use of what we'd today call emojis—small images or icons used to epress ideas, emotions, etc. It's unclear how well Gleason's ad...

In "Gettysburg’s Southern Front," Hampton Newsome takes readers beyond the fields of Pennsylvania to examine Union efforts to threaten Richmond.

In "I Saw Death Coming," Kidada E. Williams provides an essential cross-section into how racist violence targeted Black families and postwar freedom.

I was not one of those precocious Civil War enthusiasts who started reading Bruce Catton at the age of 10. Even when I was in high school, my tastes ran more to literature than to history. The first history book that left a serious im- pression was John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage (1957). For some reason the chapter on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and Kansas senator Edmund G. Ross,...

In "The Tale Untwisted," Gene Thorp and Alexander Rossino build on but meaningfully extend Maryland Campaign revisionism.

Roger Lowenstein's "Ways and Means" flows with a confident grace, guiding readers through myriad financial schemes, government policies, and political intrigue.

"Six Miles from Charleston, Five Minutes to Hell" argues that Secessionville was a key battle, outweighing in scope what it lacked in scale.

New Hampshire-born journalist Charles Carleton Coffin accompanied Winfield Scott Hancock and his II Corps of the Army of the Potomac during the Gettysburg Campaign. Coffin wrote about a memorable encounter between Union troops and Gettysburg resident Josephine Miller, 23, who remained in the family house with her father as the battle intensified in the area. Coffin’s account, published as part...

"Contemners and Serpents" presents the correspondence of a family who ended up in Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina during and after the Civil War.

Mingus and Wittenberg present a comprehensive retelling of the critical period that preceded the conflict’s bloodiest encounter.

James C. Cobb's biography "C. Vann Woodward" provides unique insight into the power and production of history.

How did Americans observe Christmas and the New Year during the Civil War? Illustrated newspapers, like Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's, published many illustrations throughout the conflict that showed readers how their fellow countrymen marked the holiday season, both in the army and on the homefront.

Robert Redd's "Hidden History of Civil War Florida" highlights the depth fo the state's Civil War history.

Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation could be one of this century’s great movies about self-emancipation. Not because of its fragile historical accuracy, or because it stars Will Smith, but because it lives up to its title: