A lot of interesting stuff over the last month. Dave Powell’s new series on the Atlanta Campaign was particularly interesting.
By the way, if you want to listen to my own podcast on Reconstruction and the Civil War, just click below.
Blogs
Emerging Civil War reports that William A. Frassanito, a pioneer in the study of Civil War photography, is going to share his rare photographs in a new exhibit, “Early Photography at Gettysburg – The Frassanito Collection,” that will debut at Gettysburg’s new Beyond the Battle museum, opening in April 2023. The new history center under the auspices of the Adams County Historical Society, will be located at 625 Biglerville Road, Gettysburg.
The same site looks at new Civil War Trails signs that were just put up in Waverly, Tennessee, one of which highlights the story of Black Union troops who served at Fort Hill.
Also at Emerging Civil War, respected historian Dave Powell started a new series based on his research into the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. The focus is on odd human interest stories. First off is fun with guard duty. He has a much less fun look at executions in the Confederate army during its long retreat to Atlanta in the second installment of the series. A third article looks at a mistaken Union attack at Resaca.
Jon-Erik Gilot has a fascinating three-part series on a pro-slavery raid on a Federal arsenal that had many similarities in execution to John Brown’s Harpers Ferry Raid without the perpetrators being hung. Proto-Confederate attacks on Federal arsenals were frequent before the actual war began, but it was Brown who was branded a traitor! Parts I, II, and III
Chris Mackowski, the head of Emerging Civil War, writes about the burden George Meade felt in commanding the Army of the Potomac.
Jon Tracy at Emerging Civil War has a good article on Civil War sites in Waterbury, Vt. including those telling the story of a Union surgeon. At the same site Sarah Kay Bierle writes about veterans runions in the Shenandoah Valley.
Last month being November, there were, of course, a number of Election Day-related posts. Emerging Civil War had a nice piece by Tim Talbot about the 5th United States Colored Infantry’s soldiers voting in the 1864 election. The men were strongly pro-Lincoln. The regiment had been recruited in Ohio, a state that limited voting to white men only. However, the Black soldiers learned that if they were of mixed race ancestry, they could vote, and so they did.
Over at History News Network Villanova professors Judy Giesberg and Paul Steege have a piece on failed-Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano’s historical “Mad Libs.” Mastriano gained infamy over the last two years for posing in a Confederate uniform and welcoming far-right armed militias to Gettysburg. According to the post:
On Sept. 16, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, held a rally in Chambersburg, Penn. featuring Donald Trump, Jr. But the rally’s viral moment occurred when Lance Wallnau, a self-proclaimed evangelical leader and futurist, asked the crowd to put their right hands in the air while he commemorated the Battle of Gettysburg. It was a historical mad libs moment, combining a motion associated with Nazi Germany and Civil War nostalgia.
At Civil War Monitor, well-known historian Gary Gallagher continues his series on Voices from the Army of Northern Virginia with a look at collections of letters written by four Confederate divisional commanders during the war. According to Gallagher:
Four division commanders wrote letters that rival the best from anyone who served in the Army of Northern Virginia. The men wrote frequently and perceptively: Lafayette McLaws, a Georgian and for a time the army’s senior division chief; North Carolinians William Dorsey Pender and Stephen Dodson Ramseur, who died of wounds at Gettysburg and Cedar Creek, respectively; and Gabriel C. Wharton, a brigadier who fought in the Overland and 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaigns. Their letters discuss military topics, offer opinions about other officers and public events, and chart shifting morale and attitudes regarding Confederate prospects for independence. A fifth worthy letter writer is another North Carolinian, Bryan Grimes, whose Extracts of Letters of Major-General Bryan Grimes, to His Wife…, edited by Pulaski Cowper (1883; reprint, Broadfoot, 1986), is particularly useful for his descriptions of campaigning in the last year of the war.
George Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac for the last two years of the war always seemed like the neglected general. In the last decade he has gotten more attention from historians and the Civil War Monitor devoted some space to asking historians a couple of questions about him. While only 12% thought he was the best Union army commander other than Grant, most had at least some good things to say about him.
Substack
Kevin Levin is happy about reading the new Library of America edition of Bruce Catton’s Army of the Potomac Trilogy. Considered a classic of popular writing on the Civil War, I would guess that most “students of the Civil War” of, let’s say, more than 50 years of age have read at least some of it. The Library of America edition has an introduction by Gary Gallagher. Levin says of the book, “I am thoroughly enjoying it. There are so many interesting narrative choices, even in the opening chapter.” Check out his post for more on what he thinks about the book.
Levin tries to stop talking about “Black Confederates.” but the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) just won’t let him! The SCV recently opened its new National Confederate Museum in Tennessee and it, as expected, promotes the idea that large numbers of Black men fought to create the Confederacy. Levin looks at the evidence, or more accurately “lack of evidence” of the SCV’s claims.
Levin, a high school history teacher for years, has looked over the controversial proposed Virginia history standards and asks why it is necessary to teach about Robert E. Lee at four different grade levels.
Levin, a popular author on the Civil War, gives his picks for the best books on the conflict that were published over the last year. He also looks at a newspaper published in Vicksburg during the last two days of its siege.
Finally, Levin brings down the wrath of some reenactors over his call to ban Confederate reenactors from participating in the November parade in Gettysburg every year remembering those who died there.
Book Reviews
At Emerging Civil War Zachery A. Fry reviews The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered edited by Charles Mitchell and Jean Baker. I recall visiting Maryland as a teenager and being told many times that it was “part of the South,” with the teller reminding me that the state song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” honors the Confederacy and denounces Lincoln. Later as I looked more closely at the states history, I realized that was only part of the story, and that many white Marylanders and nearly all Blacks were opposed to the Confederacy. Of this new book on the subject of Maryland during the Civil War, Zachery Fry says: “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered brings together a wide array of approaches and interpretations, all centered on the idea of reexamining the question of state loyalty and identity in the mid-nineteenth century. The result is one of the more impressive edited volumes in recent years, one that resurrects some previously unknown stories and provides new interpretations for other long-standing questions. Highly recommended.”
Civil War Books and Authors (CWBA) reviews Christy Perry Tuohey’s A Place of Rest for our Gallant Boys: The U.S. Army General Hospital at Gallipolis, Ohio, 1861-1865. According to the review: “The medical history of the Civil War continues to be a burgeoning field, and A Place of Rest for our Gallant Boys offers yet another meaningful contribution to Civil War hospital studies.”
Well-known military historian Earl Hess has a new book Civil War Field Artillery: Promise and Performance on the Battlefield reviewed by Civil War Books and Authors. According to the review:
This book amply fills a gap long overdue to be filled. Much like Hess himself has expanded the modern scope of Civil War military history publishing through deeply researched examinations of a wide range of interconnected topics (ex. his recent studies of the impact of rifled muskets on the battlefield, army logistical transport, field fortifications, the intersection of supply and strategy, and infantry tactics)…Critics might quibble with the stridency of some of Hess’s challenges to long-held assumptions, but it is always the case that the arguments presented in Civil War Field Artillery are backed by a considerable body of evidence requiring strong re[f]lection. Both reinforcing and reshaping existing interpretations of Union and Confederate artillery, this thought-provoking study is required reading for anyone wishing to gain a broad and nuanced understanding of the role and performance of the long arm on the Civil War battlefield.
CWBA also reviewed The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1865: A Study in Command by William Royston Geise. This was a previously unpublished doctoral dissertation from nearly a half-century ago. According to the review; “While the lateness of its publication is to be lamented, the seminal nature of Geise’s work and the fact that it’s based almost entirely on original sources speaks to its enduring significance.”
Black Suffrage: Lincoln’s Last Goal by Paul D. Escot is reviewed by Ruth West at Civil War Monitor. West says that this book “focuses on Northern attitudes towards Black rights in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.” The book is a valuable contribution to the scholarship on the months right after the end of the war, according to West. She writes; “Escott’s work is is crucial to helping understand not only the failures of 1865, but also the journey towards the passage of the 15th Amendment. Although private and global issues sometimes drew public attention, Northern white abolitionists and Black people in both regions also mobilized by organizing conventions, groups like the Equal Rights League, and writing petitions. In direct opposition to Democratic arguments, these actions provided definitive proof that Black freedmen in the South were qualified for the franchise and that this fight would not disappear.”
The Last Fire-Eater: Roger A. Pryor and the Search for a Southern Identity by William A. Link also gets a Civil War Monitor review, this one by prominent historian Brian Matthew Jordan. Roger Pryor was a Southern fire-eater demanding war against the United States who turned out to be a terrible soldier in the war he so longed for. After the war he moved to New York for economic opportunity and became law partner with Radical Republican Ben Butler! Professor Jordan writes of this new bio; “Packing a considerable historiographical punch, students of the Civil War will welcome William A. Link’s reintroduction of Roger Atkinson Pryor—a colorful character who perhaps never accepted his own, outsized role in rending the country for a terrible cause.”
Brett Bagur at Civil War Monitor reviewed An Environmental History of the Civil War by Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver. We have seen more and more writing on this subject in the last two decades, but this book, says the reviewer, offers “a stunning synthesis of the Civil War as a “biotic” and “biological event.”” Bagur concludes that “An Environmental History of the Civil War makes an important contribution to Civil War historiography. The authors articulate a coherent argument for a more ecologically conscious narrative of the nation’s fratricidal conflict and, no less importantly, suggest that the war marked a watershed in how Americans conceived of their relationship with the wider, non-human world. This is a book that will appeal to all students of the war.”
Al Mackey reviews Elizabeth Leonard’s new biography Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy Fearless Life. He writes “This excellent book follows Butler’s life all the way to his death January 11, 1893. It’s deeply researched and well written. I can highly recommend it for students of the war.”
Finally, Civil War Monitor has a review of The Gospel of Freedom: Black Evangelicals and the Underground Railroad by Alicestyne Turley. Reviewer Caleb W. Southern writes that the book “is a recommended and valuable contribution to our understanding of the Underground Railroad, Black Evangelicalism, and abolition.”
Podcasts
Jon-Erik, curator of the Captain Espy Post at the Carnegie Library in Carnegie, Pa., interviewed the host of the Addressing Gettysburg Podcast, Matt Callery. It was interesting to hear why Matt, a New jersey native, moved to Gettysburg and devoted himself to exploring the history of the place.
The same site did a show on the Gettysburg Address during the anniversary season of the 1863 speech. Gettysburg guides Fran Feyock and Doug Douds and historian Jared Peatman talked about the speech and its uses long after the war.
Sarah Kay Bierle from Emerging Civil War discussed the experiences of civilians during the battle of Gettysburg on Untold Civil War.
Chris Mackowski from Emerging Civil War speaks with historian Joe Ricci about the Confederate “lost opportunity” of the Civil War: the Federal escape from Spring Hill, Tennessee, which set up the battle of Franklin.
Civil War Talk Radio had a good interview with Clayton J. Butler, author of “True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction.”
Civil War Talk Radio had its second show on finance this year with David. K. Thomson, author of “Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union.”
Civil War Talk Radio interviewed Bradley Gottfried, author of “Lee Invades the North: A Comparison of the Antietam and Gettysburg Campaigns.” Gerry Prokopowicz may have spotted an error in Brad’s new book, by the way.
Video
Here is the Battle of Antietam Lego-style.
Some fun with the question of whether “history is being rewritten.”
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