Last month was a very unusual time of life for me. I was hit with a stroke four weeks ago. This is my first blog that I am writing after the stroke. Please, if I have some failures, let me know in the comments.
Blog Posts
K. Howell Keiser Jr. at Emerging Civil War (ECW) offers a full scholarly deep dive into the work of Thomas Cooper, whom Keiser describes as a “British émigré to the United States, public intellectual, and later proslavery educator at South Carolina College.” This is a great contribution to understanding a pre-Civil War defense of slavery.
Sean Michael Chick at ECW says that the Union assault on Port Hudson on May 27, 1863 was “one of the cruelest days” for the Federal government. Apart from the actual tally of the battle, the two regiments of Black Louisiana Colored Guards who took part in the attack helped convince Northern whites that Black men could be made to fight. The same author offers another article on General Nathaniel Banks campaigning to take over Port Hudson before the May 27 assault.
Derek D. Maxfield, whose new ECW book on Sherman came out, writes about Sherman arguing against going after Major General Bell Hood as the Confederate struck into Tennessee after Union troops captured Atlanta in 1864.
Bert Dunkerly has a good contribution for the “other” grand reviews of the Union Army after the war. Washington is well-known, but there are others that are useful to look at, but Dunkerly describes the Grand Review in Richmond, Va.
Chris Mackowski has an interesting letter that Confederate General Richard Ewell sent to Ulysses S. Grant after he heard that Lincoln was assassinated. Mackowski said that one of the other Confederates he was with threatened to disown him.
Another writer at Emerging Civil War, Tonya McQuade, described how her ancestor joined the “Invalid Corps.” As the author points out, 60,000 men served in the Invalid Corps.
At the Civil War Bluejackets, there is an article looking at the distinction between “ordinary seaman” and “seaman” during the Civil War.
Over at Student of the American Civil War, Al Mackey has a report on the renaming of the place formerly known as Fort Hood, in Texas.
Over at the blog Muster, the head historian for the army looking at the renaming of the Confederate bases has his story.
Substack
Kevin Levin has brought his background of teaching Civil War history at the high school level to reply to a recent National Assessment of Educational Progress statement that 8th Grade history scored lower on history than at any time since 1994.
Brigadier General Edward Porter Alexander is another subject for a post on Levin’s Substack. Alexander brought to the Confederate Army his “camp servant”, or slave, named Charley. Levin tells a story of the relationship between the two men over four years of war that is well-beyond what you would see in social media posts on the war.
Another Levin go-to strength is his research into Confederate statues. In Birmingham, Alabama the local Confederate statue was used to break-up a joint white-Black unionization drive in the late 1800s.
Levin is currently working on a biography of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers Infantry. This month he has insights into Shaw and his parents’ having differences of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Finally, you should have a chance to look at this post on the Nikki Haley campaign’s continued problem with the Confederate Flag.
Book Reviews
The Civil War Monitor (CWM) had some good reviews. Benjamin E. Park reviews Young America: The Transformation of Nationalism Before the Civil War by Mark Power Smith. “Young American” was a coalition of social reformers and politicians in the 1840s and 1850s that was expansive. While most of us have hear of “Young America,” Park says this new work places “Young American” movement as creating a new form of white nationalism.
The Fifth Border State: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Formation of West Virginia, 1829-1872 by Scott A. MacKenzie is reviewed in CWM by Jonathan A. Noyalas. There has been more written about West Virginia in the last ten years than almost any time since the Civil War. Noyalas says that:
“While MacKenzie’s thoughtfully researched and lucidly argued volume offers much to those seeking a deeper understanding of slavery and the complexities of West Virginia’s formation, this book’s appeal extends beyond individuals interested in the Mountain State. Those who study broader themes, such as the evolving attitudes toward emancipation, the nuances of Unionism, the complexities of life in a border region, and the roles that newspapers played in shifting the political landscape, will find much value in this paradigm-shifting study.”
Brian Matthew Jordan, one of the more prominent reviewers at CWM, has his review of Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War by Derek D. Maxfield. Jordan says that this Emerging Civil War volume is a short work for general readers. Jordan says that “In a short compass, the author effectively introduces his subject and the many historical (and historiographical) controversies he raised.” Brian Matthew Jordan does not give this book faint praise. He writes:
“By foregrounding the paradoxes that defined Sherman’s life, Derek D. Maxfield has brilliantly recovered the humanity of his subject. Neither blind to Sherman’s foibles and failures nor taken by the stubborn Lost Cause caricatures, Maxfield instead renders a portrait of Sherman as sensible as it sensitive. Readers unwilling to tackle Brian Holden Reid’s hefty The Scourge of War—the best of the modern scholarly biographies—should turn to Man of Fire for a fine overview of Sherman’s life and Civil War service.”
Kevin McPartland at CWM takes on Storm Over Key West: The Civil War and the Call of Freedom by Mike Pride. While West Virginia is getting more attention, Florida still lacks very much written about it. Many Americans have visited Key West and this local history seems to place the Key is at the center of Civil War history. Here is what McPartland writes:
“Overall, this well written book demonstrates that Key West played a special role in the Civil War. Home to blockade runners, Unionists, secessionists, and some of the first experiments in emancipation and reconstruction, Pride’s work casts Key West in a new light for Civil War scholars.”
Cecily N. Zander reviews Navigating Liberty: Black Refugees and Antislavery Reformers in the Civil War South by John Cimprich for CWM. Ever since Rehearsals for Reconstruction by Willie Lee Rose was published in 1964, there have been scholars trying to look at how freed slaves tried to create freedom’s ring even those the was no 13th Amendment. Zander says:
“One of the most commendable elements of Navigating Liberty is its digestibility. The book is broken up into small and readable sections, which help to orient readers as they confront the myriad issues that faced both reformers and refugees. In Chapter 2, for example, Cimprich deals with necessities, and offers sections on food, housing, clothing, and security. Cimprich manages to clearly organize the disparate elements in a way that brings admirable clarity to a process that was, even on its best days, deeply disorganized.”
Tim Talbott, also a banner reviewer, gives a great write up of Delivered Under Fire: Absalom Markland and Freedom’s Mail by Candice Shy Hooper. Talbott says that the book “creates the awareness that Markland deserves and gives students of the conflict a greater appreciation for one of the war’s fascinating individuals who influenced its outcome.”
Codie Eash reviews All Roads Led to Gettysburg: A New Look at the Civil War’s Pivotal Campaign by Troy D. Harman for CWM. Troy Harman is a NPS Ranger at Gettysburg. Harman argues that the two largest armies of the Civil War wound up at Gettysburg for “Gettysburg constituted a natural place for battle.”
Andre M. Fleche reviews Civil Wars and Reconstructions in the Americas: The United States, Mexico, and Argentina, 1860-1880 by Evan Rothera for Civil War Book Review. Fleche says that “Rothera points out that between 1860 and 1880 all three nations fought destructive civil wars, a commonality that he contends was not lost on contemporaries.” Fleche has some reservations about the book, but he says this work “will take its place as one of the most thorough and sustained analyses yet written of the mid-nineteenth century relations between the U.S and Latin America. Scholars who wish to understand the complex and interrelated set of crises that troubled the Western Hemisphere during the 1860s and 1870s will find the work indispensable.”
The Civil War Book Review has a review by Thomas Curran of The Long Civil War: New Explorations of America’s Enduring Conflict edited by John Smith and Arsenault Raymond on the “Long View” of the Civil War. If you’ve ever read Erich Hobsbawm, Curran says that is what you’ll get from this. It starts thirty years before the war, and it continues on into the early 21st Century. Curran says that this is a good introduction to “scholarship being produced that employs a broader chronological understanding of the war.”
Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz has a review at Civil War Book Review of The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation, 1856-1861 by Lauren Haumesser. According to Laughlin-Schultz, “In this engaging and succinct work, Lauren N. Haumesser complicates our understanding of the unraveling of the two-party system in the 1850s, shedding new light on the coming of the Civil War through a careful examination of the gendered rhetoric of Republicans, Democrats, and, ultimately, Constitutional Unionists.”
Emerging Civil War had some good reviews. Tim Talbott reviews Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era by Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant. Sadly, I have represented children who were refugees who were in other peoples armies. As we find out here, there is a sorry history of soldiers in the armies at the time of the Civil War.
Tim Talbott, who is the Book Review editor of Emerging Civil War, has another review, this one of Civil War Field Artillery: Promise and Performance on the Battlefield by Earl J. Hess. Professor Hess seems to be writing a book a year for a while. According to Talbott, “This study gives enthusiasts who are unfamiliar with the hardware and operation of artillery an excellent foundation to build upon, while it also provides the advanced students of artillery with compelling new evidence-based arguments to consider and discuss.”
Meg Groeling reviews The Wild Woman of Cincinnati: Gender and Politics On the Eve of the Civil War by Michael D. Pierson. This was a hoax of the kind that publics expected in the 19th Century, but where Democrats and Republicans interpreted two different motivations.
Over at Civil War Books and Authors (CWBA), there was also some attention given to Florida. A Wilderness of Destruction: Confederate Guerrillas in East and South Florida, 1861-1865 by Zack C. Waters gets high praise; “In its lengthy investigation of the breadth, character, and significance of the irregular conflict in the state, Zack Waters’s A Wilderness of Destruction: Confederate Guerrillas in East and South Florida, 1861-1865 represents a major step forward in filling remaining gaps in the military historiography of Civil War Florida,” as well as for filling in gaps in understanding guerilla warfare.
Decisions at Shiloh: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Dave Powell is coming from a very respected author on military matters. CWBA says; “The evenhanded manner in which he presents the strengths and weaknesses of the differing viewpoints attached to major contemporary controversies and subsequent historiographical focal points alike, inviting informed discussion rather than simply promoting a “correct” interpretation dismissive of the others, is refreshing.”
Small but Important Riots: The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville by Robert F. O’Neill is another CWBA book review. These three battles, right after the Battle of Brandy Station, helped to show Union cavalry was on par with Confederate cavalry as the Gettysburg Campaign was getting underway. Honestly, I had only seen these battles mentioned in a page or less in most accounts of the June 1863 events. According to CWBA, “In addition to providing an exemplary historical account of a series of sharply contested cavalry actions fought during the early stages of the Gettysburg Campaign, Robert O’Neill’s Small but Important Riots: The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville is unquestionably indispensable to any meaningful discussion of the mid-war evolution of the Union mounted arm in the East. Highly recommended.”
CWBA does a review on a subject that always puzzled me, why did the Confederates fail to put together a cooperative military command in the West? More Than Just Grit: Civil War Leadership, Logistics and Teamwork in the West, 1862 by Richard J. Zimmermann gets a heads up from CWBA, saying “Richard Zimmermann’s More Than Just Grit is a freshly framed, consistently interesting, and astutely argued addition to the discussion. In providing a theater-wide focus on one of the war’s most critical intervals, the study also effectively highlights a number of factors that contributed to contrasting fortunes between East and West for both sides.”
Podcasts
The Tattooed Historian interviewed Megan L. Bever, author of At War With King Alcohol: Debating Drinking and Masculinity in the Civil War.
The Emerging Civil War’s Chris Mackowski has on two recent authors, Doug Crenshaw and Drew Gruber, to discuss the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles of McClennan attempt to take Richmond in 1862.
Ulysses S. Grant was a big role for a living historian like Curt Fields to take on. Chris Mackowski talks with Fields on the history behind Grant and how he has played Grant for many years.
Chris Mackowski has a discussion on Civil War Monuments and Memory with Jon Tracey.
Chris Mackowski explores the 22 critical decisions of the Shiloh Campaign with Dave Powell as he talks about his new book, Decisions at Shiloh.
Civil War Talk Radio has Gerry Prokopowicz interviewing Fay Yarbrough, author of Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country. Yarbrough begins win the pre-Civil War history up to the Civil War.
Harold Holzer, author and editor of over Fifty Books on Lincoln and the Civil War
Jessica Ziparo, author of “This Grand Experiment: When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in Civil War–Era Washington, D.C.”
John Avlon, author of “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace”
Julie L. Holcomb, author of “Exploring the American Civil War through 50 Historic Treasures”
Finally, the Addressing Gettysburg Podcast has a good discussion of Jim Hessler of Longstreet famous “Countermarch” at Gettysburg.
