Meade: The Price of Command, 1863–1865, John G. Shelby, Kent State University Press, [2018]   Interview Conducted by H-Net, Niels Eichorn NE: John, to start, how did you become interested in writing a biographical account of George Gordon Meade that focused on his time as commander of the Army of the Potomac?  JGS: It began with a questioning of much of the literature I had read over the years on fighting in the East. A central premise seemed to be that the commanders of the Army of the Potomac could never have defeated Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia without the firm ..read more

     H-Net: InterviewText {Part One} NE: Guy, to start our conversation, you have already written a few books on Civil War era medical topics, how did you decide to do this one on the Confederate Army Medical Department? GRH: Although I’m interested in many aspects of Civil War medicine, I had become especially intrigued by the Confederate Army Medical Department and how it managed to keep itself going throughout the war. The central figure in that organization was Surgeon General Samuel Preston Moore, but there is little written about him other than mentions of his stern ch ..read more

  Matchless Organization: The Confederate Army Medical Department, Guy R. Hasegawa, Southern Illinois University Press, paperback, $26.50 2021 The essental reference about a surprisingly well organized medical department   Despite the many obstacles it had to overcome—including a naval blockade, lack of a strong industrial base, and personnel unaccustomed to military life—the Richmond-based Confederate Army Medical Department developed into a robust organization that nimbly adapted to changing circumstances. In the first book to address the topic, Guy R. Hasegawa describes the org ..read more

    Campaign for the Confederate Coast: Blockading, Blockade Running and Related Endeavors During the American Civil War, Gil Hahn, 2021.$21.95, 322 pp., illustrations, index, bibliographic notes, West 88th Street Press  Hahn offers a through but concise discussion of the aims, means available to the Confederacy as it seeks to maintain its economic trade with Europe and the aims and means available to the Union to restrict and minimize that economic intercourse. He well establishes the social and economic circumstances involved along with the evolution of the sea tactics and the ..read more

Civil War Witnesses and Their Books: New Perspectives on Iconic Works (Number 74 in the series, Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War), Gary Gallagher et al., 314 pp., Louisiana State University Press, $45.00 From the Publisher:  Civil War Witnesses and Their Books: New Perspectives on Iconic Works serves as a wide-ranging analysis of texts written by individuals who experienced the American Civil War. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Stephen Cushman, this volume, like its companion, Civil War Writing: New Perspectives on Iconic Texts (2019), features the voices of ..read more

UVA Unionists: Digital Project Studying University of Virginia Alumni Who Stayed Loyal to the Union On May 4 at 7 pm ET, the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia officially launched its second digital project, UVA Unionists. This project chronicles the more than sixty UVA students, alumni, or professors who served the Union cause during the Civil War. Editorial Assistant Brian Neumann and Digital Historian Will Kurtz discussed the projects findings and give a short demonstration of the website. YouTube Video:  University of Virginia Unionists   ..read more

  Army University Press: The ‘Union Army’ Is No More,  By Fred Bauer, National Review, April 27, 2021  Having triumphed over rebel forces 160 years ago, the Union army now faces a new challenge: the effort to erase it from history books  The Army University Press announced new guidelines for article and book submissions that strongly discourage the use of the term 'the Union' to refer to the forces of the U.S. government during the Civil War. Similarly, citizens in states who remained loyal to the United States did not all feel a strong commitment towards dissolving the ins ..read more

  Lessons learned — and forgotten — from the horrific epidemics of the U.S. Civil War, Jonathan S. Jones April 18, 2021 STAT, April 18, 2021   As the U.S. approaches 600,000 deaths from Covid-19, it is hard to fathom that this calamity pales in comparison to America’s worst outbreak of epidemic diseases during and just after the Civil War. From smallpox and measles to dysentery and typhoid, the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, triggered an explosion of deadly epidemics on a scale never seen in the U.S., before or since. A million sick soldiers, newly emancipated ex-slaves ..read more

 Civil War Richmond: The Last Citadel, Jack Trammel and Guy Terrell, Forward by Ed Ayers, 205 pp., 71 illustrations, 4 charts, 3 maps, bibliographic notes, bibliography, index, $21.99 The authors offer a clear and concise presentation of Richmond's various histories; such as Richmond before 1861. This discussion includes its founding, commerce, and population in the context of it's being as a state capital in which cotton was king and slave sales occurred. Not neglected is the African American community and citizens who opposed slavery,  The authors' offer the city's 1861-1864 hist ..read more

 Three Civil War Historians Discuss Digital History and Writing History   http://cwmemory.com/2021/03/14/stephen-berry-on-the-historians-craft ..read more