Monthly Archives: November 2017
The Intersections of the Past, History, and Memory
Dr. Lisa Gilbert is a social studies teacher at the Thomas Jefferson School in St. Louis, Missouri. She put together this map for her 8th Grade students to explain how academic and public history coincide and differ as well as explaining what history is and how it differs from memory and the past. This is […]
Gettysburg National Military Park Winter 2018 Programs
Gettysburg National Military Park announced its winter programs for 2018. See here. The winter lecture series lineup looks terrific, with Matt Atkinson leading off. I’m looking forward to these lectures. If you’re near Gettysburg on any of these dates, stop by. If you can’t make it, check out the battlefield Facebook page. Each of the […]
The Battle of Monocacy: The Fight that Saved Washington D.C.
Here’s Tracy Evans from the Monocacy National Battlefield giving an excellent lecture on the Battle of Monocacy. This was part of the Gettysburg National Military Park’s 2017 Winter Lecture Series. The video’s description reads, “On July 9th, 1864, Union troops led by General Lew Wallace clashed with Confederate veterans commanded by General Jubal Early. The […]
Jefferson Davis as a Representative of Civilization
This was the 1890 Commencement Address W. E. B. DuBois delivered at Harvard University [see here]. Dr. DuBois begins, “Jefferson Davis was a typical Teutonic hero; the history of civilization during the last millennium has been the development of the idea of the Strong Man of which he was the embodiment. The Anglo-Saxon loves a […]
The Siren
The citation for this case is 74 US [7 Wall.] 152. In February of 1865 the US Navy captured the steamer Siren in Charleston Harbor, attempting to evade the blockade. A prize master and crew took control of the vessel and sailed it to Boston. En route, they had to put into New York port for […]
With Malice Toward Some
This book by Professor William Blair of Penn State University examines how Federal officials punished treason in the Civil War and just afterward. In the Introduction, we learn, “Treason pervaded public discourse. It represents a challenge for a researcher to find a northern newspaper or periodical during any day of the war in which the […]
The Generalship of Robert E. Lee, Part Eight
“An Old-Fashioned soldier in a Modern War? Robert E. Lee as Confederate General” is an article by Professor Gary Gallagher in Civil War History, Volume 45, Issue 4, December, 1999, pp. 295-321 [see also here and here]. He starts by reviewing how Lee is popularly viewed as an anachronism, a throwback to an earlier time. “Lee […]
The Grapeshot
The citation for this case is 76 US [9 Wall.] 129. In April, 1858, the bark Grapeshot was in the port of Rio de Janeiro badly in need of repair, reprovisioning, and remanning in order to make its return to the United States. Its master, Joseph Clark, had no money to pay for this, so he […]
Custer’s Trials
This is a wonderful book by T. J. Stiles. It was a pleasure to read, both because it was engagingly written and because the author doesn’t confine himself to simple biography but instead places the subject within the context of the times, giving us in essence a history of the part of the United States […]
Historical Context of Civil War Monuments
This is a very good panel discussion on the context of Civil War monuments, specifically confederate monuments. The panelists are David Blight of Yale University, Gaines Foster of LSU, and Karen Cox of UNC-Charlotte. The moderator is James Grossman, Executive Director of the American Historical Association. The video’s description reads, “Panelists talked about the historical […]
Student of the American Civil War 
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