Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 2: Review of John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General by Stephen M. Hood
Newton’s second law of motion, roughly paraphrased, informs us that “an object at rest stays at rest, while an object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.” This law of physics encapsulates Stephen M. Hood’s work of history John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General, […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 3: Civil War Nurses Series: Interesting Facts about Northern Nurses
One great misconception many people have regarding nurses in both the Union and Confederacy is that they assisted the surgeons in medical procedures. This was for the most part not the case, except in rare situations in the field. During the Civil War women of both sides confined their duties to fit within the domestic […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 4: Gettysburg Memories: Field Trip
I’m in third grade. Hershey Elementary School. We all pile onto a row of big yellow school buses that rumble down Route 322 to I-83 to Route 15, which goes southwest from Camp Hill to Gettysburg. This is my introduction to the Civil War. In a photo that survives from the trip, twelve of us […]
Read more...And before 2013 ends, the #10 book Every Civil War Buff Ought To Own . . . Gore Vidal’s Lincoln: A Novel
Part of a Series: Books Every Civil War Buff Ought to Own The main reason this series has taken so long is that I knew there should be a Lincoln biography on the list. Which one, however, is a huge decision. I could go classical with Sandburg’s 3-volume set (referred to as “a good poem, […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 5: Making Hardtack
The parks are all closed and you are at your wit’s end trying to figure out what to do. You have watched Gettysburg about as many times as anyone could possible stomach and . . . stomach? Have I got a solution for you! After all, the holidays are coming up, and everyone needs a […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 10: Fateful Lightning: Was Sherman’s March To the Sea a War Crime? Part I
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 11: Gary Gallagher, ECW, and the Wild West of Civil War Blogging (part one)
I’ve had two experiences recently that have given me pause to consider the relationship between history and blogging—and, by extension, that’s given me the opportunity to reflect on our specific mission here at Emerging Civil War. The first was a column by Gary Gallagher in the June 2012 issue of Civil War Times. The second […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 12: Making Sense of Chickamauga
I’ve heard the phrase “hot mess” before, but Chickamauga National Battlefield gave it a whole new meaning. The first time I visited, about seven years ago, temperatures soared into the upper nineties with a humidity of about 700%. Because few interpretive markers dot the landscape, I had no idea what I was looking at beyond […]
Read more...Top 15 Posts of 2013—Number 13: Repatriating Court Documents Stolen from Stafford Courthouse, Virginia, by Union Troops in 1862
Guest post by George H. Bresnick, director of the H. Stanley Bresnick Foundation The countryside around Stafford, Virginia, was devastated by the occupation forces of the Union Army in November, 1862. So severe was the physical damage and the loss of population that it is said that the land and the populace around the township of Stafford […]
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