This article by Professor Joseph Harsh is in Civil War History, Volume 19, Number 2, June 1973, pp. 101-118. In it, Professor Harsh gives us a more objective appraisal of McClellan historiography to that point and to McClellan’s own views and policy preferences. He tells us, “Sound and fury swirl around the historical reputation of George Brinton McClellan. ‘By some persons he is considered the greatest strategist of the age,’ sighed an early biographer. ‘By others he is regarded as unfit to command even a hundred men’ And surely McClellan was controversial during the later months of his comm ..read more

This book by Harold Holzer is an in-depth look at what Abraham Lincoln did and said, along with the events, between his election as president and his inauguration. This was, as the subtitle tells us in the words coined by Henry Adams, “The Great Secession Winter of 1860-1861, when the seven states of the Deep South passed ordinances of secession, illegitimately claiming they were no longer part of the United States. Holzer calls this “the most dangerous transition period in history.” [p. 5] He says, “While attending to the customary tasks of assembling a cabinet, rewarding political loyalists ..read more

This is an excellent discussion between host Professor Gerald Prokopowicz and his guest, Professor Elizabeth Varon about Professor Varon’s biography of James Longstreet ..read more

Each April we have to suffer through the nauseating paeans to the treasonous white supremacist confederacy as some southern states declare April to be “Confederate Heritage Month” or some variation thereof. This year is no different, as this article from Mississippi tells us. “Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared April 2024 as Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi, keeping alive a 31-year-old tradition that began in 1993. Beauvoir, the Biloxi, Miss., the museum and historic home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, announced the proclamation in a Facebook post on Frid ..read more

This is a wonderful conversation with Professor Anne Marshall on Kentucky and the Lost Cause lie. This is from the history podcast, “For the Ages.” The episode’s description reads, “Kentucky fought alongside the Union for the entirety of the Civil War, yet in the decades that followed, the state embraced many political and cultural traditions of the Confederacy, enacting Jim Crow laws and erecting monuments to embrace this adopted identity. In a fascinating conversation on identity and political myth-making, historian Anne E. Marshall breaks down how and why Kentuckians constructed this histo ..read more

Katharina Matro (center) tried something new in her ninth-grade world history class. She brought historians into her class discussions as scholars, writers, thinkers, doubters, and humans themselves. Caitlin Taylor, courtesy Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart This article comes from the American Historical Association. “When I read through the results of the AHA and Fairleigh Dickinson’s ‘Surveying the Past’ study, one set of answers stood out to me. Across all age groups, respondents indicated that they associated high school history classes with the teaching of ‘names, dates, and other f ..read more

Gabe and Nannie Wharton (Courtesy of Wilderness Road Regional Museum, Newbern, Va; Courtesy of Glencoe Mansion, Museum and Gallery, Radford Heritage Foundation) This interview with the noted historian William C. “Jack” Davis is from the Winter 2023 issue of America’s Civil War magazine. “Civil War historian William C. ‘Jack’ Davis, retired professor of American History at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, recently collaborated with Sue Bell on a project to edit letters dating from 1863 to 1865 between Sue Bell’s great-great-grandparents: Anne ‘Nannie’ Radford Wharton, 19, who had just wed Gabr ..read more

Educators participate in an advocacy workshop led by Virginia teachers on preserving social studies state standard revisions at the annual National Council for the Social Studies conference in Nashville. Credit: Javeria Salman for The Hechinger Report I came across this article from the Hechinger Report. “In recent years, division over how social studies should be taught has plagued school districts around the country. The irony, according to Lawrence Paska, executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies, is that in many places, the subject is ‘not being taught, period.’ Soc ..read more

In this episode Professor Gerald Prokopowicz speaks with author Howell Raines about his book covering the 1st Alabama Cavalry (US ..read more

One of the 8-inch Columbiad cannons at Confederate Fort Darling, overlooking a bend in the James River at Drewry’s Bluff. The well-protected, 100-foot-high bluff was a major factor in foiling Union naval attacks on Richmond and putting greater pressure on Butler’s land advance from Bermuda Hundred. (Library of Congress) This article comes from the Winter 2023 issue of America’s Civil War magazine. “In a war known for its provocative personalities, few could compete with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. An established antebellum politician, lawyer, and businessman, he gained fame during the c ..read more