Essays on the Civil War

In collaboration with the University of North Carolina Press, editors Caroline Janney, Peter Carmichael, and Aaron Sheehan-Dean, have created a festschrift to honor noted Civil War scholar Gary W. Gallagher, who had helped train and inspire a whole generation of young historians.

This collection of papers demonstrates the energy and innovative research on the Civil War era by some of this new generation of scholars. Some idea of the contents may be gained by noting the titles of a few of the dozen essays and papers such as:

• “Protecting Their Self-Interest: Native America Governance in the Confederacy,” by William A. Blair.
• “The Confederacy’s Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa,” by Andre A. Fleche.
• “Science and Daring: Robert E. Lee as Engineer, Soldier, and Modernizer,” by Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh.
• “We Cannot Believe Americans Can do These Things: Erasing Violence from the Civil War Record," by Peter Carmichael

These are eye-opening papers building on “national sentiment, the centrality of military events, and the intersection of history and memory.”

This is important reading for anyone interested in the Civil War, the Lost Cause, and the vagaries of historical memory.

Our Reviewer: David Marshall has been a high school American history teacher in the Miami-Dade School district for more than three decades. A life-long Civil War enthusiast, David is president of the Miami Civil War Round Table Book Club. In addition to numerous reviews in Civil War News and other publications, he has given presentations to Civil War Round Tables on Joshua Chamberlain, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the common soldier. His previous reviews here include The Civil War Memoirs of Captain William J. Seymour, Stay and Fight it Out, Calamity at Frederick, John T. Wilder, The Sergeant: The Incredible Life of Nicholas Said, Contrasts in Command: The Battle of Fair Oaks, Brigades of Antietam, Lee Invades the North, From Antietam to Appomattox with Upton’s Regulars, Our Flag Was Still There, Never Such a Campaign, The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, from the Gettysburg Retreat through the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South, Unforgettables, Bayou Battles for Vicksburg, Race to the Potomac, Conflict of Command, and The World Will Never See the Like.

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