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How was President’s Day Celebrated During the Civil War?
Happy President’s Day! Hopefully you’re fortunate enough to have today off as you read this. And you may be wondering, how was this holiday, which celebrates the United States federal government’s...
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Civil War Surprises: Santiago Vidaurri’s Tempting Offer
In 1861 the Confederacy dispatched envoys, diplomats, and agents abroad in attempts to secure foreign recognition and international prestige. The most well-known of these became the Trent affair. A far...
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Teddy Roosevelt vs. Jeff Davis
One can easily imagine the outcome of an interaction between the ever-brittle Jefferson Davis and the bull-in-a-china-shop robustness of Theodore Roosevelt. While not contemporaries, Roosevelt did have...
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Jefferson Davis’s “Unsent” Message to Congress
ECW welcomes back guest author Greg Thiele Jefferson Davis was particularly sensitive where his authority was concerned. He possessed an unshakeable belief in his own judgment and never hesitated to...
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At War’s End: Danville, Martinsville, and the Final Days of the Civil War
ECW welcomes guest author Jarred Marlowe By April 2, 1865, hope for the Confederate State of America was dwindling fast. After the colossal failure at the Battle of Five Forks the day before, General...
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The Dusty Bookshelf: Edward Stanly: Whiggery’s Tarheel “Conqueror”
Norman D. Brown, Edward Stanly: Whiggery’s Tarheel “Conqueror.” University of Alabama Press, 1974 Many books about Civil War figures start with a brief introductory section of the subject’s prewar...
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Presidential Photography
Happy Presidents Day! Here are a few photographs from my collection with a presidential theme and Civil War connections. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was President James Buchanan’s hometown in his later...
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The West Point Effect: Duty, Honor, and Second Chances
ECW welcomes back guest author Dan Walker “American” from the start: West Point’s “Eggnog Riot” From its start, the United States Military Academy at West Point was something of a paradox: It was, and...
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Book Review: Creating a More Perfect Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, the...
Creating a More Perfect Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, the Constitution, and Secession in Antebellum America. By Peter Radan. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2023. Hardback, 389 pp....
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It Didn’t End with Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox: A Look at the Surrenders of...
Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith in Uniform, 1862 In Part I of this post, I shared an excerpt from my book A State Divided: The Civil War Letters of James Callaway Hale and Benjamin Petree of Andrew...
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