Muster

In 1866, while surveying former Confederate landscapes, Edmund Whitman observed that the “entire country over which the war has extended, . . . composes one vast charnel house of the dead.”[1] Although southerners were mostly the denizens living inside that veritable “house of the dead,” Drew Gilpin Faust has produced ...
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The American Civil War was one of the most photographed events of the nineteenth century. Powerful images of battlefield carnage, life in the camp, and studio portraits of soldiers in uniform stimulate an emotional response that reminds us of the human cost of war. Likewise, touching photos of grandparents, parents, ...
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The Journal of the Civil War Era is pleased to announce that Dr. Lindsey Peterson has been selected as the recipient of the Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award for 2023. Her winning essay is titled, “‘Homebuilders’: Gender and Union Commemoration in the Trans-Mississippi West.” The prize selection committee, consisting of Dr ...
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Kimberly Welch's article "The Stability of Fortunes: A Free Black Woman, Her Legacy, and the Legal Archive in Antebellum New Orleans" has been chosen as the recipient of the George and Ann Richards Prize for best article published in The Journal of the Civil War Era by a prize committee drawn ...
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The Society of Civil War Historians and the Watson-Brown Foundation are proud to announce that R. Isabela Morales is the recipient of the 2023 Tom Watson Brown Book Award. Dr. Morales earned the award for Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom which was published in 2022 by ...
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In July of 1863, the most noteworthy Civil War battle in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) occurred on the lands of the Honey Springs settlement, Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Today, the significance of the Civil War in Indian Territory, including the Battle of Honey Springs, remains lost to the historical narrative of ...
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“So,” the man across the high-top cocktail table said, precise eye contact belying years of military bearing.  “What’s your role in all this?” Fishing my nametag from behind my tie, I replied with all the authority someone five weeks on the job could muster.  “I’m the Naming Commission’s Lead Historian.” ...
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Our June issue reinforces our sense that the field of the Civil War Era remains a wide-ranging, creative site of engaged scholarship. The pieces in this issue span from slavery to the present day, delving into concrete historical details and the persistent narratives that shape our encounters with the past ...
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We’re delighted to introduce two new associate editors of the journal: Megan L. Bever and Catherine A. Jones. Bever will serve as book review editor, while Jones will serve as review essay editor. Megan Bever is associate professor of history and chair of the Social Sciences Department at Missouri Southern ...
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In recent years, the transnational turn in Civil War scholarship has finally started to include Latin America. While Mexico with the French-Mexican Conservative Alliance has long attracted a significant amount of scholarship, the rest of Latin America has not. Recent works by Evan Rothera and James Sanders offer glimpses into ...
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Today we share an interview with Bryan LaPointe, the 2021 winner the 2021 Anthony E. Kaye Memorial Essay Award. His article appearedin the March 2023 JCWE, titled “A Right to Speak: Formerly Enslaved People and the Political Antislavery Movement in Antebellum America.” LaPointe is a PhD candidate in history at ...
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Today we share an interview with Elizabeth Varon, who published an article in the March 2023 JCWE, titled “The "Bull-Dog" in Istanbul: James Longstreet's Revealing Tour as US Minister to Turkey, 1880–81.” Varon is the Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia. As a historian ...
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Today we share an interview with Camille Suárez, who published an article in the March 2023 JCWE, titled “A Legal Confiscation: The 1851 Land Act and the Transformation of Californios into Colonized Colonizers.” Camille Suárez is an assistant professor of history at CalState LA. As a historian of the US West, ...
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When I began examining the lived experiences of northern United States Colored Troops (USCT) soldiers, I thought it was critical to emphasize their lives and familial dynamics beyond their time in the U.S. Army.  My book-The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and The Fight for Racial Justice-details northern freeborn families ...
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Welcome to the first issue of the 2023 volume of the Journal of the Civil War Era. The issue features three research essays and a review essay that highlight the journal's broad geographical, chronological, and topical coverage. We present articles that take us from the antebellum North to California to ...
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As historians of the Civil War era, we are all extremely familiar with the growing desire of using appropriate terminology in our scholarship and the pushback that such terminological changes have brought. We saw this when the Army University Press abandoned the term “Union” in its publications.[1] Slavery scholars had ...
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