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The following news item and image about an incident involving Union officer Joseph Knipe ran in Harper's Weekly on July 20, 1861—the day before the Battle of Bull Run. Knipe, a major and aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Edward Williams at the time, would be wounded several times during the war and rise to the rank of brigadier general. The Pennsylvania native survived the conflict and died...

Sean Michael Chick's "Dreams of Victory" asks some interesting questions and brings to life the old controversies.

"The Whartons' War" is a voluminous collection covering over three years of the war with no significant gaps.

Daniel J. Burge's "A Failed Vision of Empire" is a well-written, deeply researched, and provocative book.

Looking to do some reading on the First Battle of Bull Run? We asked Harry Smeltzer, proprietor of the website Bull Runnings, for his five essential books on the war’s first major battle. Below are his selections.

On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederae forces clashed just north of Manassas, Virginia, in the war's first major land battle. The engagment brought together inexperienced northern and southern volunteers, most of whom expected a quick, relatively bloodless, and decisive victory. The result was a battle whose outcome remained up in the air until a late Confederate push that broke the Union army's...

John A. Simpson's "All for the Union" offers yet another lens through which to trace the timeworn trail of the embattled Army of the Potomac.

Terry Alford's spellbinding "In The Houses of Their Dead" makes important interventions in both Civil War scholarship and Lincoln studies.

In the Voices section of the Summer 2022 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted quotes about one of the more common foods consumed by soldiers on both sides: salt pork. Unfortunately, we didn't have room to include all that we found. Below are those that just missed the cut.