Civil War

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• SOURCE: Civil War Memory
  1/3/2021
  

  Do We Really Need Another Biography of Robert E. Lee?

  by Kevin M. Levin

  Recent discussion of the forthcoming biography of Robert E. Lee by Allen Guelzo shouldn't foreclose the possibility that the book will offer insight because many historians object to Guelzo's participation in Donald Trump's conference on teaching history. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/5/2020
  

  The Senators Who Were Expelled After Refusing To Accept Lincoln’s Election

  by Gillian Brockell

  Not since the crisis of secession and the Civil War has the U.S. Senate expelled a member. 

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• SOURCE: ArcDigital
  12/20/2020
  

  The Americans Who Long for Civil War: Should We Take these Big Talkers Seriously?

  by L.D. Burnett

  The chances that Trumpist die-hards will secede are nil. But the spirit animating this talk is still toxic and can't be ignored. 

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• SOURCE: Paste
  12/15/2020
  

  Paste Magazine's Best Documentaries of 2020

  Documentaries on the memory of the Civil War and the beginnings of the disability movement are among Paste's best of the year. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/29/2020
  

  Let Trump Try To Defend Racist, Traitorous Confederates. Congress Can Still Prevail

  by Ty Seidule

  "This nation should honor those who fought bravely to defend it, not its enemies."

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• SOURCE: Library of Congress
  11/10/2020
  

  Henry Wirz and Andersonville Prison

  Henry Wirz, commander of the infamous Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, was hanged on November 10, 1865, in Washington, D.C., the only Confederate officer executed as a war criminal.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  11/4/2020
  

  You’re Tearing Me Apart: On William L. Barney’s “Rebels in the Making: The Secession Crisis and the Birth of the Confederacy”

  A new book on secession examines the politics of all 15 slave states and power of a reactionary slaveholding elite to force secession. 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  10/28/2020
  

  This is the Biggest Election in 160 Years

  by Manisha Sinha

  "The one underlying commonality that binds these two historic presidential elections is the conviction that it is American democracy -- rather than just opposing presidential candidates -- that is on the ballot."

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• SOURCE: Woodrow Wilson Center and National History Center
  10/29/2020
  

  The Woman’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation: Washington History Seminar with Thavolia Glymph 11/4

  Thavolia Glymph provides a comprehensive new history of women's roles and lives in the Civil War--North and South, white and black, slave and free--showing how women were essentially and fully engaged in all three arenas.

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• SOURCE: Politico
  10/27/2020
  

  How Democrats Can Learn Hardball From the Republicans of 1861

  The Antebellum slave power suppressed democracy and abolitionism through control of the institutions of American government, from the Senate to the courts to the postal service. Only after secession and the start of civil war did the Republican Party fight back successfully with hardball tactics.

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  10/9/2020
  

  #WEWANTMOREHISTORY

  by Greg Downs, Hilary N. Green, Scott Hancock, and Kate Masur

  At historic sites across the United States on September 26, dozens of participating historians presented evidence to disrupt, correct, or fill out the oversimplified and problematic messages too often communicated by the nation’s memorial landscape.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  10/12/2020
  

  Packing the Court: Amid National Crises, Lincoln and His Republicans Remade the Supreme Court to Fit their Agenda

  by Calvin Schermerhorn

  In remaking the court in Republicans’ image, the party got what it wanted – but not what was needed to fulfill the promise of “a new birth of freedom.”

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  10/6/2020
  

  The Oligarchs’ Revenge (Review)

  by Manisha Sinha

  Heather Cox Richardson's book makes an essential argument that the conceptual distinction between class and race in American history obscures the way that American elites have worked to create and defend oligarchy. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  10/5/2020
  

  Holding an Election During the Civil War Set the Standard for Us Today

  by Jonathan W. White

  “We can not have free government without elections,” Lincoln told the crowd, “and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.” 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/28/2020
  

  Amid the Monument Wars, a Rally for ‘More History’

  “Historians have different views on taking down statues,” said Gregory Downs, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and one of the organizers. “But that debate doesn’t really capture what historians do, which is to bring more history.”

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• SOURCE: YouTube
  9/29/2020
  

  Bawdy Civil War Letters, In the Style of Ken Burns

  by Katie Hemphill

  Historian Katie Hemphill's recent crash course in video editing for Zoom teaching let her fulfill a longtime goal: set the bawdiest Civil War letters she found in her research to the stirring sounds of documentary music. Content Warning: Cuss Words.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/26/2020
  

  Re-Watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

  by Gillian Brockell

  Ken Burns's Civil War documentary series sparked tremendous interest in history, but the series has a big Shelby Foote problem. 

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• SOURCE: Journal of the Civil War Era
  9/22/2020
  

  Civil War Day of Action: Leading a Reading Group

  by Julie A. Mujic

  Leading a reading group is a great, and socially-distanced, way to take part in the Day of Action for Civil War history. Here are some tips. 

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• SOURCE: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
  9/19/2020
  

  Trump's Praise of Robert E. Lee Gets Pushback from Minnesotans Proud of State's Role at Gettysburg

  Many Minnesotans took issue with Donald Trump's praise for Robert E. Lee at a rally in Bemidji, particularly because of the role of Minnesota troops in defeating the Confederacy. 

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• SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
  9/16/2020
  

  Ed Bearss, Past Chief Historian Of National Park Service, Dies At 97

  Ed Bearss was one of the most important figures in the preservation of Civil War battlefields as sites for the American public to learn about history.