Yesterday I sent off my manuscript to The University of North Carolina Press to begin the peer review process. To say that I am relieved would be an understatement. It’s always a strange feeling in the wake of finishing a project that has taken years to complete and one that, at times, has been be both incredibly exhilarating and frustrating. There is still a good deal of work to do. I will eventually have to respond to the two anonymous reviewers, who will read the manuscript for UNC Press. In addition, I need to finalize a list of illustrations and photographs and possibly secure one or t ..read more

By now you’ve seen the clip of Donald Trump talking about the Battle of Gettysburg at a recent campaign event in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, which is about 130 miles from the famous battlefield. Subscribe now Once again, it’s an embarrassing display of ignorance about American history for this former president. Social media had some fun with Trump’s incoherent interpretation and even Jon Stewart got in on the action. Reading the text is even more embarrassing, if that is even possible. Just a few thought. It appears that Trump is aware that Gettysburg was a Union victory, but what I find ..read more

(This week was the anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. Should it be a national holiday?) As I mentioned last week, I’ve pretty much wrapped up my biography of Robert Gould Shaw. I am in the process of reviewing the manuscript and checking endnotes. It’s a time consuming process, but I hope to finally submit the manuscript to the publisher some time next week. Subscribe now News Many of you read my most recent post, but likely didn’t get my update regarding the status of the Virginia bill that, if passed, would cancel the UDC’s tax-exempt status. I thought Gov. Youngkin ..read more

Here is a list of the books mentioned in the video. Make sure to check out the publisher’s website as they often offer discounts not available elsewhere. Subscribe now David W. Blight, Yale and Slavery: A History (Yale University Press, 2024). Amazon / Yale / IndieBound Richard K.D. Colby, An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South (Oxford University Press, 2024). Amazon / Oxford / IndieBound Gaines M. Foster, The Limits of the Lost Cause: Essays on Civil War Memory (Louisiana State University Press, 2024). Amazon / LSU Press / IndieBound Share Steven Hahn, Illiberal America: A Hi ..read more

(Robert Gould Shaw and Harriet Tubman) Imagine it for a moment. Harriet Tubman, the “Moses of her People” serving Col. Robert Gould Shaw his final meal on Morris Island before leading the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts in its ill-fated charge against Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. The scene fits neatly in a narrative that places Shaw at the center of the story of emancipation. But is the story true? Subscribe now I’ve been wrestling with this and a few other stories as I bring my biography of Shaw to a close. There are a number of sources for this story, including Kate Clifford Larson’s fabulous ..read more

(Source: Virginia Flaggers Facebook Page) April is Confederate History Month. It’s a bit of a misnomer since the individuals and organizations that take part in his month-long celebration are not interested in history, at leas as any normal person would understand the subject, but rather in a mythical narrative known as the Lost Cause. It’s an opportunity to celebrate ancestors, colorful generals like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and a cause that largely avoids any reckoning with the reason the Confederate existed at all: slavery. Subscribe now It’s also the month where Confederate h ..read more

Officers in the 2nd Massachusetts (Source: Massachusetts Historical Society) Of all the source that I have examined in the course of my research on Robert Gould Shaw, none has proven more important (other than his own correspondence) than that of Charles Fessenden Morse, which the Massachusetts Historical Society has digitized and made available to the public. Subscribe now Morse served with Robert Gould Shaw in the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, throughout 1861 and 1862, before the latter accepted the colonelcy of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in February 1863. Charles ..read more

Senator Charles Sumner (Source: Mount Auburn Cemetery) First, let me just say thank you for your patience. I haven’t had the opportunity to post much this month as I continue to work feverishly to wrap up my manuscript on the life and memory of Col. Robert Gould Shaw. I am pleased to share that I am just about finished. Another week or so of hunting down references, formatting the endnotes, and writing the introduction and the manuscript will be ready for peer review. Subscribe now Since I don’t have much time and I haven’t done one in recent weeks, I thought it would fun to do another open ..read more

I am currently working away at writing the Introduction for my biography of Robert Gould Shaw. I’ve been playing around with the idea that there were three martyrs to the Union/abolitionist cause between 1861 and 1865, each of them occupying a unique place along the timeline. (Source: National Portrait Gallery) The first is Col Elmer Ellsworth, who was killed while attempting to remove a Confederate flag from atop the Marshall House in Alexandria, Virginia on May 24, 1861. Ellsworth made a name for himself by leading a number of militia units in the 1850s, in places like Chicago, Milwaukee ..read more

(Source: National Park Service) In 2022, Jim Grossman, who is the Executive Director of the American Historical Association, invited me to attend the first meeting of a working group that planned to investigate what actually goes on in history classrooms across the country. It was the height of damaging rhetoric that cast history teachers as enemies of the country and unregulated ideologues committed to brainwashing their students. By that time, a number of states had passed or were in the process of debating legislation that would censor certain aspects of history teaching, most notably in ..read more