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Author Archives: Sean Michael Chick
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
CW & Pop Culture: Robert E. Lee and The Guns of the South: 1992 vs. 2019
In the 1990s it was common enough at my New Orleans high school to see copies of Harry Turtledove’s The Guns of the South. It offered a beguiling and humorous image of Robert E. Lee in his classic pose, only … Continue reading
Forgetting Nashville
Among the twenty-five bloodiest battles of the American Civil War, Nashville—fought December 15-16, 1864—stands as among the most “forgotten.” Only two major works, by Stanley F. Horn and James Lee McDonough, have chronicled the engagement. The reasons for this are … Continue reading
Posted in Battles, Memory
Tagged Battle of Nashville, George H. Thomas, John Bell Hood, USCT
7 Comments
“But his soul goes marching on.” Brown, Douglass, and the Radicals
Today abolitionism is praised with few reservations, but it was a fringe movement in the 1830s. Its followers took a lonely moral stand. William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 declared “I am in earnest. I will not equivocate – I will … Continue reading
Posted in Slavery
Tagged Abolition, John Brown, John Brown's Raid, John-Brown-160, John-Browns-Raid-160
21 Comments
Do We Still Care About the Civil War: Sean Michael Chick
The cover story of the newest issue of Civil War Times asks, “Do we still care about the Civil War?” ECW is pleased to partner with Civil War Times to extend the conversation here on the blog. Asking if the … Continue reading
Almost a General: James de Berty Trudeau
The Trudeau family was among the prominent old families of New Orleans. They provided soldiers and administrators to the French and Spanish rulers of Louisiana. The first was Jean Trudeau, a French Canadian, confidant of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, … Continue reading
Posted in Artillery
4 Comments
