Earlier this week I received my author copies of the latest issue of The Civil War Monitor, which contains my essay on Confederate camp servants. As I’ve said before, I am very excited about this particular piece. It encompasses some of what I am trying to address in the first chapter of my book on [...]
Southern History
There are a number of plans on the table that would change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest Park in Memphis, Tennessee. Any plan that involves removing the Forrest monument would also have to include the removal of his remains which are buried below. That presents all kinds of challenges. As I’ve said before, I [...]
John Christopher Winsmith was what historian Jason Phillips refers to as a “diehard rebel.” Throughout the war, Winsmith never wavered in his enthusiasm for the cause. He believed that it was incumbent on everyone in the Confederacy to make the necessary sacrifices in the army and on the home front. In letters that routinely characterized [...]
Many of you have viewed the Open Yale Course on the Civil War and Reconstruction taught by David Blight. It’s a wonderful opportunity to take a survey course with one of the nation’s most respected Civil War scholars. I am currently making my way through Professor Jonathan Holloway’s course, African American History: From Emancipation to [...]
Like many of you I’ve been following this story out of Utah at Dixie College. It seems that the school is going through a bit of an identity crisis as its status shifts from college to university. Already a statue of a Confederate soldier has been relocated off campus grounds, but it is the debate [...]
Byron Thomas made a name for himself not too long ago by hanging a Confederate flag in his dorm window at the University of South Carolina – Beaufort. Since then he has utilized YouTube to promote his own vision of a post-racial society. Some of it is worth watching and some of it is not. [...]
My latest column at The New York Times’s Disunion page is now available. The essay briefly explores the relationship between John Christopher Winsmith and his body servant, Spencer. The Winsmith letters are housed at the Museum of the Confederacy and offer an incredibly rich account of the war from a Confederate officer in the slaveholding [...]
I don’t normally share reader mail, but this struck me as worth posting. It’s been a few years since I last visited Stratford Hall and while I had a pleasant visit I too was struck by the emphasis on the cherubs. Today I visited Stratford Hall. The Great House obviously demonstrates the Lee family’s tremendous [...]
