One of my goals when I started this blog back in 2005 was to find ways to use it as an extension of my teaching. Over the years I have shared teaching resources, including primary and secondary sources and lesson plans. It’s forced me to think carefully about what it is that I am trying Read more
Stephen V. Ash, Rebel Richmond: Life and Death in the Confederate Capital (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver, An Environmental History of the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). Jo Ann Daly Carr, Such Anxious Hours: Wisconsin Women’s Voices From the Civil War (The University of Wisconsin Press Read more
You’ve head it before. The vast majority of Confederate monuments and memorials were dedicated at the height of the Jim Crow-era. The Southern Poverty Law Center released this helpful graph to help visualize this spike in monument dedications between roughly 1890 and 1940. What made this possible was the disfranchisement of African Americans throughout the Read more
Update: Thanks again to my friends at the Civil War Monitor for sending along copies of their latest issue to help me promote my book. They are SOLD OUT, but I still have plenty of books available. Hope all of you enjoyed your Thanksgiving feats. Today, it’s Black Friday folks and here at Civil War Read more
I’ve always been just a little jealous of those of you whose connection to the Civil War can be traced back to a family visit to a Civil War battlefield or through reading a book such as the American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War. For me it was a random visit to the Read more
This past week the city of Pittsboro, North Carolina removed a Confederate statue from in front of the courthouse. It had stood on public property since 1907. The removal brought out a small group of people representing both sides of the issue, but overall there appears to have been little impact on the community itself Read more
Can you figure it out? Here’s a hint: You wouldn’t be able to restore any of this without them. Go Read more
Over the past few weeks I’ve been working away at constructing Robert Gould Shaw’s early life. I don’t know how much time I will spend on it in the biography, but I am looking for anything that might help me better understand his later development during the war. Luckily, his letters have been digitized by Read more
Like many of you out there I am sad to hear of the passing of Dr. James I. Robertson. He enjoyed a long and respectable career at Virginia Tech and touched many people with his passion for Civil War history in the classroom, on the radio, and on countless battlefield tours. One of the first Read more
In case you missed the latest update, I recently learned that UNC Press has ordered a second printing of Searching for Black Confederates. I still have signed/personalized copies available for purchase if you are interested. Anne C. Bailey, The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Kathleen Read more