This is what I liked best last month.
Blogs
Fredericksburg National Park Historian John Hennessy retired in September and he got a lot of tributes online, including from me. Here is what Kevin Levin of Civil War Memory wrote about this respected interpreter of the war and its aftermath.
Levin also writes about a postcard depicting Richmond’s Monument Avenue a century ago. He describes how the monuments helped shape the all-white neighborhood.
Al Mackey writes about a new survey on where Americans “get their history.” It is not from scholarly books. He also has a very short set of suggestions for books for those hoping to counter NeoConfederate propaganda.
Jon Tracey tries to make sense out of the fighting at Barlow’s Knoll on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg at the Emerging Civil War blog. He also has an article on Ambrose Bierce’s Civil War writings.
With September being the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, there were a number of blogs that posted on that 1862 fight. Emerging Civil War took up the eternal question of who, if anyone, actually won the battle.
Author Guy Hasegawa has advice for aspiring Civil War authors on writing a book.
Kerry Stewart writes about Union General George Thomas, a Virginian who opted to serve the United States.
Podcasts
Over at Civil War Talk Radio, David A. Welker talks about his new book The Cornfield: Antietams Bloody Turning Point with Gerry.
Videos
Richmond National Battlefield Park has a short map talk on New Market Heights and Fort Harrison, battles fought outside Richmond in 1864.
Book Reviews
A Holy Baptism of Fire & Blood: The Bible & the American Civil War by James P. Byrd is reviewed over at Civil War Monitor. According to Caleb Southern, this book has the “goal of tracing the ways Americans used the Bible during the Civil War. A Holy Baptism of Fire & Blood seeks to answer the question, “Which biblical texts did American turn to most often in the Civil War?””
Lincoln and Citizenship by Mark E. Steiner is the newest installment of the Concise Lincoln Series. According to reviewer Paul Quigley, “this book provides a sharp and insightful introduction to the subject. The transformation of citizenship during the Civil War era mattered to John Wilkes Booth, it mattered to Abraham Lincoln, and it continues to matter in an America struggling anew over what citizenship means and who is included.”
Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community by Vanessa M. Holden examines what happened to the people impacted by Nat Turner’s rebellion. Turner appears in many histories as a singular hero, but Holden remind us that this was a community rising against oppression. According to the review, “Vanessa Holden successfully moves our attention from Nat Turner to his community at a time when the appeal for uncovering societies of resistance has never been more apparent.”
Timothy Smith’s new book The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23-July 4, 1863 gets an enthusiastic review at Civil War Books and Authors. According to the review:
The Siege of Vicksburg will unquestionably come to be regarded as the standard history of the concluding phase of the campaign. Already the author of major works covering the Battle of Champion Hill, the two Vicksburg assaults, and now the siege, Smith is currently in the midst of researching and writing an epic campaign series that will fill in the remaining gaps and provide readers with an exhaustive new military history of the entire operation from start to finish. Given the superlative quality of Smith’s existing work, there is every expectation that this ambitious project, when finished, will rank among the Civil War literature’s enduring classics.
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