The following video was uploaded to YouTube a couple of days ago. I know nothing about the woman who produced it, but I think it is a wonderful example of how the Web2.0 world has shaped the Civil War Sesquicentennial. As opposed to the centennial years, when relatively few historical institutions exercised control over how [...]
Civil War Sesquicentennial
And the winner is: “Celebrating the little-known Battle of Calico, California, (or Farb Forks) apparently fought over possession of the town’s only all-you-can-eat buffet.” — Ken Noe Those of you who are into reenacting are either going to get a good laugh out of this or have your day ruined. Each year, Calico Ghost Town [...]
Thanks to The Journal of the Civil War Era for making available online a forum from their most recent issue on the future of Civil War historiography. The essays are all worth reading and I especially enjoyed Stephen Berry’s “top ten” predictions on how broader trends within the field will shape Civil War studies in [...]
One of my first posts all the way back in 2005 focused on what I saw as the inevitable decline of our Civil War round tables. I suggested that without a resurgence of interest in the Civil War era that animated Americans in the early 1960s these groups would disappear one by one. In light [...]
Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis all prayed at the church at one point or another during the war. It was there in April 1865 that Davis learned that Richmond must be evacuated. So, why the cold shoulder? It’s hard to tell at this point, but here is what we know. Yesterday the [...]
I am making my way through a small collection of essays in Thomas Brown’s Remixing the Civil War: Meditations on the Sesquicentennial (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). Fitz Brundage opens his essay on African American artists, who have interpreted the Civil War in recent years, with a reference to Willie Levi Casey. You can see [...]
This morning I voted online for the next president of The Society of Civil War Historians. I’ve been a member for a few years now and even had the opportunity to address the organization back in 2008. The SCWH recently established a new book prize, a new journal, as well as a biennial conference. I [...]
On Tuesday I will be working with a group of k-12 history teachers in Virginia on how they can introduce the subject of historical memory in their classrooms. The news that Virginia may set aside a day to honor Abraham Lincoln could not have come at a better time and I plan on offering some [...]
