Published: 2/2/22Rebel Salvation (2021)By: Caleb W. SouthernCategory: Book Reviews Reconstruction is often depicted as a political and policy battle between “Presidential Reconstruction,” led by President Andrew Johnson and “Congressional Reconstruction,” advocated by Radical Republicans in the United States Congress....
Published: 1/26/22Untouched by the Conflict (2019)By: Gordon BergCategory: Book Reviews More than two million young men left their civilian lives, donned blue woolen uniforms, shouldered arms, and served in the Union army during the Civil War. Many Dickinson College alumni...
Published: 1/19/22Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy (2021)By: Aaron David HyamsCategory: Book Reviews Born along the middle border in Franklin County, Ohio, in 1831 and dying on the “closing” Colorado frontier in 1891, John R. Kelso lived what can only be described as...
Published: 1/5/22Rites of Retaliation (2021)By: Burrus M. CarnahanCategory: Book Reviews By the fall of 1862, Jefferson Davis believed he had found a way to control the Union Army. That summer General John Pope had led an army into Virginia, issuing...
Published: 12/29/21Stephen A. Swails (2021)By: Brian Matthew JordanCategory: Book Reviews Among the many shelves of biographies chronicling the exploits of Civil War Americans, there are precious few treatments of Black soldiers or sailors. This is just one reason that students...
Published: 12/22/21Robert E. Lee (2021)By: A. Wilson GreeneCategory: Book Reviews “How do you write the biography of someone who commits treason?” asks Allen C. Guelzo, Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and the distinguished author of some of this century’s...
Published: 12/15/21Searching for Irvin McDowell (2021)By: Frank JastrzembskiCategory: Book Reviews While there are shelves of books about Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, dozens of Civil War generals have not yet scored biographers. One name that falls into this...
Published: 12/8/21Worthy of a Higher Rank (2021)By: Jonathan A. NoyalasCategory: Book Reviews On October 22, 1864, three days after a remarkable Union victory at the Battle of Cedar Creek, The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer reported the grim news that one of that community’s most...
Published: 12/1/21Rebel Correspondent (2021)By: Sarah Kay BierleCategory: Book Reviews In 1901, Arba F. Shaw began writing a series of war reminiscences that were published in serialized form in his local newspaper. What began as a brief commentary turned into...
Published: 11/24/21The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg & Tullahoma (2021)By: Robert L. GlazeCategory: Book Reviews On July 7, 1863, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, anxious to maintain Union initiative following pivotal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, sent a perplexing telegraph to one of his...
Published: 11/17/21Passing Through the Fire (2021)By: Codie EashCategory: Book Reviews Savas Beatie’s popular Emerging Civil War series presents concise titles suited for both enthusiasts and novice students of military history. Increasingly, these brief but detailed studies have shifted away from...
Published: 11/10/21The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg (2021)By: Summer PerrittCategory: Book Reviews The Summer of ‘63 is an engaging and diverse set of works exploring the Battle of Gettysburg. Regarded by many as the turning point of the Civil War, Gettysburg still...
Published: 11/3/21Cornerstone of the Confederacy (2021)By: Caleb W. SouthernCategory: Book Reviews The “corner-stone” of the Confederacy, insisted its newly-appointed vice president Alexander H. Stephens, “rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery—subordination...
Published: 10/27/21Matchless Organization (2021)By: Sarah Handley-CousinsCategory: Book Reviews In Matchless Organization, Guy R. Hasegawa offers a clear, detailed, and thorough history of the Confederacy’s military medical organization. The book is largely procedural, walking the reader through the organization of...
Published: 10/20/21Lincoln’s Mentors (2021)By: Caleb W. SouthernCategory: Book Reviews Americans, it seems, never tire of reading about Abraham Lincoln. Michael J. Gerhardt adds to the library of books about the sixteenth president with this impressive study of the men...
Published: 10/13/21William Barksdale, CSA (2021)By: Evan C. RotheraCategory: Book Reviews William Barksdale’s life is often reduced to a single episode—namely, the charge his brigade made at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. This tendency leaves most of Barksdale’s life unexamined. As...
Published: 10/6/21Buying & Selling Civil War Memory in Gilded Age America (2021)By: Brian Matthew JordanCategory: Book Reviews In the two decades since the publication of David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, scholarship on the meaning and legacy of our nation’s fratricidal...
Published: 9/29/21The Boy Generals (2021)By: Jonathan A. NoyalasCategory: Book Reviews The June 24, 1865, issue of Harper’s Weekly carried a full-page engraving featuring Union generals Philip H. Sheridan, George Crook, James Forsyth, George Custer, and Wesley Merritt. The print, derived from...
Published: 9/22/21Surviving Southampton (2021)By: Benjamin E. ParkCategory: Book Reviews The name that is associated with any given event usually reveals how we remember it. In the case of “Nat Turner’s Rebellion,” the focus on the revolt’s “leader” is clear....
Published: 9/15/21Lincoln and Citizenship (2021)By: Paul QuigleyCategory: Book Reviews Two days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln delivered the last speech of his life. Responding to Louisiana’s plans for a new state constitution, Lincoln expressed his support for...