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Author Archives: Sean Michael Chick
The 1858 New Orleans Mayoral Election
This article was co-written with Michael Kraemer, a PhD student at The Ohio State University In 1803, the United States bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoléon Bonaparte. It contained many independent Native American nations, as well as New Orleans, which … Continue reading
Posted in Antebellum South, Politics
Tagged "Know Nothing", election, New Orleans, P.G.T. Beauregard, vigilance committee
10 Comments
Conrad Wise Chapman and “The Life Insurance Brigade”
After Fort Donelson, Colonel John Eugene Smith of the 45th Illinois Infantry observed “The Boys were constantly wishing they could have a fight. You do not hear any such wishes now.” The soldier’s lament over the horrors of war is … Continue reading
Some Thoughts on the Status of the Lost Cause
The Lost Cause was at first a subject of scholarly inquiry. It then became one of scorn, used at times as a slur. For a serious student of the war, it is a label few desire as its mythology has … Continue reading
My Hunt for the C.S.S. Alabama
Among my first introductions to the American Civil War was Robert Paul Jordan’s 1969 book The Civil War. It was a volume in a series of National Geographic Society illustrated books. Most were about regions, but there were the odd … Continue reading
Writing About History in a Manichean Age
Given current events, I find myself asking how one will be able to write about the American Civil War now and in the future. This question has been brewing in my mind since 2015 when the debate over statues began … Continue reading
Posted in Memory
Tagged civil war memory, Just Cause, Lost Cause, Manichean History, writing
47 Comments
Gaines Foster and David Blight: Two Views on the Lost Cause
In 1961 the nation celebrated the centennial of the American Civil War with a glorification of battlefield heroics entwined within a narrative of a nation reforged in the fires of war. However, Robert Penn Warren critiqued this vision with The … Continue reading
Posted in Memory
Tagged civil war memory, Confederate memory, David W. Blight, Gaines M. Foster, historiography, Lost Cause
12 Comments
Deep South Die Hards vs. James Wilson
1865 saw the Union launch a series of offensives meant to destroy the Confederacy’s last field armies and destroy its remaining industrial infrastructure. Among the offensives was James H. Wilson’s cavalry raid. It was the grandest of the Civil War. … Continue reading
Surprise at Shiloh
The western battles of 1862 included three surprise attacks, although only one was planned as such. The opening Confederate attacks at Fort Donelson and Stones River caught the Union forces unprepared. Yet, neither caused a scandal, likely because both battles … Continue reading
Posted in Battles, Emerging Civil War
65 Comments
Drewry’s Bluff: Victory Without Satisfaction
Few campaigns in the American Civil War seemed to hold as much potential as Benjamin Butler’s Bermuda Hundred landings. Butler was expected to threaten and if possible capture Richmond, the long sought brass ring in the Eastern Theater. He could … Continue reading
Civil War & Pop Culture: “Like I said, the war was rough through here.” Thoughts on the film Pharaoh’s Army
Before 2012’s Lincoln, I used to say the big three Civil War movies were Gone with the Wind (1939), Glory (1989), and Gettysburg (1993), or the three Gs (Birth of a Nation is important for history and the evolution of … Continue reading
