Civil War Echoes: The Desert War I
75 years ago today, the German high command decided to send a contingent of German troops to North Africa to bolster Italian forces that had suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the British. This contingent fell under the command of General Erwin Rommel, and was known as the Afrika Korps; later reinforcements […]
Read more...Question of the Week: 1/10-1/17/16
Do you have any Civil War-related New Year’s resolutions? Perhaps read a particular book, attend a particular event, or visit a particular battlefield, for instance?
Read more...Book Review: “Grant Under Fire: An Exposé of Generalship & Character in the American Civil War”
Ulysses S. Grant’s service during the Civil War has, for obvious reasons, provided plenty of historiographical fodder to generation after generation of historians. The General-in-Chief’s overall standing certainly passed through its fair share of rungs. Early proponents of the Lost Cause explained that the drunken, bumbling, butcher Grant only won because of overall numbers and […]
Read more...Winners and Losers
Cannae. Waterloo. Some battles are so decisive that they define victory or defeat for generations – or millennia – to come. Most battles aren’t like that. Much more often, war is grinding attrition. Especially when the combatants have harnessed their national will and resources to the effort. Technology plays a role, and sometimes skill; but […]
Read more...Shenandoah: A 1965 Interpretation Of American Ideas
If a non-fiction book has the word “Shenandoah” in its title I probably want to read it because it’s likely a tour guidebook or a Civil War account. Recently, I found a movie titled Shenandoah[i] at the library and brought it home. Though I’d seen it about eighteen months earlier, it obviously hadn’t made a […]
Read more...Every Dog Has Its Day: The Most Optimistic Prisoner?
John Peterson, a forty-four year old farmer from Catawba County, enlisted as a private into Company D of the 28th North Carolina on October 28, 1864. His late entry into the war suggests to me that he might have been conscripted but that is mere speculation. Like many in Lane’s Brigade, to which the 28th […]
Read more...Question of the Week—1/4-1/10/16
In the fall of 1863, as George Gordon Meade tried to grapple with the Army of Northern Virginia, his former III Corps commander, Dan Sickles, was back in Washington stirring up controversy: to cover his own blunder at Gettysburg on July 2, Sickles conducted a full-court press to discredit Meade’s overall performance at the battle. […]
Read more...Thomas Nast’s Divided Christmas
On this day in 1863 Thomas Nast’s Christmas Eve forced the readers of Harper’s Weekly to confront the hardships of a war-torn wintry season. Though drawn in 1862, the image occupied a double-page spread in the January 3, 1863 edition of the popular illustrated newspaper. In a sentimental and poignant illustration, Nast featured juxtaposed scenes […]
Read more...