Monthly Archives: December 2023
Robert E. Lee: Postwar Southern Nationalist
This article by Professor Michael Fellman is from Civil War History Volume 46, No. 3, September 2000, pp. 185-204. He begins the article by describing Robert E. Lee’s appearance at the Joint Committee on Reconstruction’s February 17, 1866 session. “On the surface, Lee continued to claim that he was above partisanship and discord. He asserted […]
“Thou Knowest Not the Time of Thy Visitation”
This article, subtitled, “A Newly Discovered Letter Reveals Robert E. Lee’s Lonely Struggle with Disunion,” is by the late historian, Elizabeth Brown Pryor, and is from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 119, No. 3, July 2011, pp. 277-296. She writes, “Nine delicate pieces of stationery, covered with the flamboyant script of Robert […]
From States’ Rights to Slavery: What Caused the American Civil War?
The folks at historynet.com put together this post to give us links to stories about the events leading up to the Civil War. They tell us, “The Northern and Southern sections of the United States developed along different lines. The South remained a predominantly agrarian economy while the North became more and more industrialized. Different […]
Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South
As one can deduce from the cover photograph, while Professor Elizabeth Varon doesn’t ignore James Longstreet’s military career in Mexico and the Civil War, the primary focus of this book is on Longstreet in Reconstruction and afterward. This distinguishes the book from most biographies of Longstreet. Concentrating as she does on Longstreet’s postwar career, we […]
A Historian’s Dilemma: A Posthumous Footnote for Freeman’s R. E. Lee
This article by Professor John L. Gignilliat was published in The Journal of Southern History, Volume XLIII, No. 2, May 1977, pp. 217-236. He writes, “Less than a year after the publication of Douglas Southall Freeman’s monumental R. E. Lee the biographer acquired documentary evidence that presented him with a difficult dilemma: a newly discovered […]
The Tactical Thought of R. E. Lee and the Origins of Trench Warfare in the American Civil War, 1861-1862
This article by Professor Edward Hagerman appeared in The Historian, Volume XXXVIII, No. 1, November 1975, pp. 21-38. He writes, “The decline of the open frontal assault and the emergence of warfare characterized by tactical entrenchment on the field of battle was the most dramatic tactical transition of the American Civil War. A shock to […]
Ordeal of the Union: Fruits of Manifest Destiny 1847-1852
This book by the eminent historian Allan Nevins is the first volume in his magisterial 8-volume work covering, Ordeal of the Union, The Emergence of Lincoln, and The War for the Union. Ordeal of the Union also serves as the overall title for the series. Unfortunately, Professor Nevins passed away before he could complete the […]
The Little Town in Illinois that Helped Decide the Civil War
This article was published in the Winter 2024 issue of America’s Civil War magazine. “In the anxious days that followed the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Illinois Governor Richard Yates worried in particular about a disease-ridden little town jutting into the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Flood-prone Cairo (pronounced ‘Kay-row’), located […]
Student of the American Civil War 
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