The 100th anniversary of the dedication of “Silent Sam” on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has not surprisingly led to a renewed push to have it removed. These protests have been a regular occurrence in recent years as more people, both on and off campus, interpret both the war [...]
Kevin Levin
You may remember that Megan Kate Nelson and I are co-editing a special edition of Common-place on the Civil War Sesquicentennial, which should be published in early 2014. We just finished getting together our list of contributors and it looks awesome. We’ve covered a great deal of ground from how the war is being taught [...]
One of the last independent studies that I advised in Charlottesville was a project centered on female diaries of the Civil War that one of my students used to write her own work of historical fiction. We spent some time looking through female diaries in Special Collections at UVA, including one written by Sallie Strickler [...]
What do you think of this song and video? Is it an effective teaching tool for a certain age range or does it simply promote an overly simplistic narrative of American history that borders on propaganda? The song “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” sings the opening of the Gettysburg Address and tells of Lincoln, [...]
Today is quickly turning into another whacky day in the blogosphere. My WordPress dashboard showed a link from Edward Sebesta’s Anti-Neo-Confederate blog. When I clicked over I was shocked to find that I am referred to as a “white nationalist.” Imagine my surprise. Apparently, Ed is not happy with my recent post in response to [...]
I really had no idea that this was the kind of thing I was missing at Civil War reenactments. This image was pulled from a new photography book on the fascinating world of reenacting titled, Whistling Dixie by Anderson Scott. You can find additional images at the Wired article. So, is this part of the [...]
Here is Allen Guelzo’s brief commentary on Stuart’s arrival on July 2. However late Stuart was in arriving, the Army of Northern Virginia was still glad to see him. As he rode along the York Pike in Gettysburg, “such joyful shouts as rent the air I never heard” and “the cavalry for once was well [...]
Michael Ballard, Grant at Vicksburg: The General and the Siege, (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013). Allegra Di Bonaventura, For Adam’s Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England, (Liveright, 2013). Carole Emberton, Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South after the Civil War, (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Gary Gallagher, Becoming Confederates: Paths to [...]