Review: Jeff Shaara’s A Blaze of Glory

By the time I was two hundred pages into Jeff Shaara’s new novel—roughly halfway—I wondered how an author could write so much and say so little. It picked up, thankfully. I wouldn’t have known that, though, had I not forced myself to stick with it. I had high hopes for A Blaze of Glory, which […]

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Congratulations and Thank You!

All of us at Emerging Civil War wanted to extend our congratulations to authors Daniel  Davis, Phillip Greenwalt and Ashley Whitehead Luskey. As you may have seen all three have contributed to the summer issue of the Civil War Trust’s Hallowed Ground magazine. Please take a minute to see what they have contributed. At the same […]

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The Fourth of July and the Death of Independence

Just before the Fourth of July last year, I happened to work at the Jackson Shrine. Here’s a piece I wrote in response to that experience, originally published last year at another blog I write for, Scholars & Rogues. The clock on the fireplace mantel along the far wall still ticks away the seconds. On […]

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A Word About Independence Day in The Civil War

As we all celebrate the the Fourth of July Independence Day, let us also remember that Independence Day was considered an important cleebration duirng the Civil War in both the north and the south. In the North, Indpendence Day was symbollic for preserving the union. In the South, it represented a time of celebrating the […]

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ECW Historians Contribute to Civil War Trust’s Hallowed Ground Magazine

In August, Manassas will be the scene of another anniversary. As a prelude to that second bloody installment in Northern Virginia, fellow Emerging Civil War historian Dan Davis and myself conducted a few battlefield visits. The idea for “Scary Sequel” rose from those visits as we felt that the Battle of Groveton had been overshadowed. […]

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Before the Charge, Forever

In remembrance of Pickett’s Charge: For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and […]

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Reynolds Reconsidered

Was John Fulton Reynolds a great corps commander? Was Reynolds even a great general? And why do Civil War buffs have such a high regard for an officer who did so little in the Civil War compared to the likes of Stonewall Jackson, George Meade, Robert E. Lee, or Ulysses S. Grant? While these questions […]

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