ECW Awards

The Emerging Civil War Award for Service in Civil War Public History

Recognizes the work of an individual or organization that has made a significant impact on the field of public history in a way that better helps the general public connect with America’s defining event.

• 2026 Tom Clemens
• 2025 Eric Jacobson
• 2024 Gordon L. Jones
• 2023 Civil War Trails, Inc.
• 2022 American Battlefield Trust
• 2021 Gary W. Gallagher
• 2020 Dave Ruth
• 2019 John Coski
• 2018 D. P. Newton
• 2017 Dave Roth
• 2016 Ted Alexander

The Emerging Civil War Book Award

Presented to the best Civil War book published during the previous calendar year.

• 2026 Winner: The Devil’s Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War by Robert Gudmestad (LSU Press)
  2026 Finalist: The Battle of Gaines’s Mill by Robert Krick (American Battlefield Trust)
• 2025 Winner: Digging All Night and Fighting All Day: The Civil War Siege of Spanish Fort and the Mobile Campaign, 1865 by Paul Brueske (Savas Beatie)
  2025 Finalist: The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism by Neils Eichhorn and Duncan A. Campbell (Louisiana State University Press)
• 2024 Winner: I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign by D. Scott Hartwig (Johns Hopkins University Press)
• 2023 Winner: Gettysburg’s Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond by Hampton Newsome (Univ. Press of Kansas)
  2023 Finalist: Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War by Roger Lowenstein (Penguin)
• 2022 Winner: Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command by Kent Masterson Brown (UNC Press)
  2022 Finalist: Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule (St. Martin’s Press)
• 2021 Winner: The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West by Megan Kate Nelson (Scribner)
  2021 Finalists: The Union Assaults on Vicksburg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 17-22, 1863 by Timothy B. Smith (Univ. Press of Kansas); A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac by Zachery Fry (UNC Press)
• 2020 Winner: The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January – May 1864 by Hampton Newsome (Univ. Press of Kansas)
  2020 Finalists: Conquered by Larry Daniels (UNC Press); Bodies in Blue by Sarah Handley-Cousins (Univ. of Georgia Press)
• 2019 Winner: A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg by A. Wilson Greene (UNC Press)
  2019 Finalists: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight (Simon and Schuster); Fighting Means Killing: Civil War Soldiers and the Nature of Combat by Jonathan M. Steplyk (Univ. Press of Kansas)
• 2018 Winner: On to Petersburg: Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864 by Gordon Rhea (LSU Press)
  2018 Finalists: Inglorious Passages: Noncombat Deaths in the Civil War by Brian Steel Wills (Univ. Press of Kansas); The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: The Complete Annotated Edition, edited by John F. Marszalek (Harvard Univ. Press)
• 2017 Winner: Grant Invades Tennessee: The 1862 Battles for Forts Henry and Donelson by Timothy B. Smith (Univ. Press of Kansas)
  2017 Finalists: Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln & The Union’s War Governors by Stephen D. Engle (UNC Press); Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man in the Confederacy by Earl J. Hess (UNC Press)

The Civil War Round Table of the Year Award

Presented to Civil War Round Tables for their efforts to engage with both the Civil War community and the public at large.

• 2026 Cleveland Civil War Round Table
• 2016 Mahoning Valley (OH) Civil War Round Table

The Brig. Gen. Thomas Greely Stevenson Award

Presented to an individual or organization in recognition of outstanding service to ECW.

• 2026 Antietam Institute
• 2025 Veronica Kane
• 2024 Patrick Young
• 2023 Childress Agency
• 2022 Edward Alexander (Make Me a Map LLC)
• 2021 Sarah Keeney
• 2020 Jack Melton (Civil War News)
• 2019 C-SPAN
• 2018 Gregory A. Mertz
• 2017 Sylvia Frank Rodrigue
• 2016 Theodore P. Savas

The Emory Upton Award

Presented to a member of the Emerging Civil War community in recognition of outstanding service to ECW.

• 2026 Neil P. Chatelain
• 2025 Patrick Kelly-Fischer and Brian Swartz
• 2024 Tim Talbott
• 2023 Chris Heisey
• 2022 Dan Welch
• 2021 Paige Gibbons Backus
• 2020 Rob Orrison
• 2019 Sarah Kay Bierle
• 2018 Kristopher D. White
• 2017 Jennifer Mackowski
• 2016 Chris Mackowski