Previewing the September 2026 JCWE

This issue’s research essays, all written by early-career scholars, show how conversations in distinctive subfields can help historians develop new perspectives on the Civil War era. One article is deeply informed by environmental history, one by history of religion, and one by the history of foreign relations and empire. Meanwhile all three show how the Civil War opened new and sometimes unexpected possibilities.

Jeremy A. Nelson’s article, “A Beastly Ceasefire: Wildlife in the Civil War South,” demonstrates that amid the destruction of war, some forms of wildlife flourished. The war years, often depicted as a period of unmitigated ecological disaster, were, in fact, a time of regeneration for many species in the South. Many men who hunted game in Southern communities were away at the front, and soldiers often eschewed game hunting, needing to preserve ammunition for combat and finding it more practical to eat rations, often supplemented by livestock confiscated from surrounding farms. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including local government documentation of bounties paid for fox and wolf scalps, Nelson makes a convincing case that by interrupting hunting practices, the war created conditions in which many species lived and even thrived.

Joshua Waddell turns to the question of why the Episcopal Church came back together so quickly after the war, particularly as other Protestant denominations continued to be divided into Northern and Southern branches. In “‘I, for One, Shall Make No Acknowledgment of Wrong’: Race and Sectional Reconciliation in the Reunion of the Episcopal Church, 1865–1866,” Waddell shows that the answers lie in the Church’s particular path toward disunion and in its largely conciliatory Northern leadership. Northern leaders divided over the extent to which their Southern counterparts should express regret for slavery, for withdrawing from the national organization, or for participating in the Confederacy. Southern representatives at a crucial 1865 conference refused to make concessions, but the Northern leadership proved willing to appease them. Thus the Church reunited on conservative, accommodationist terms, setting the stage for a future in which Black Americans often felt marginalized within the institution and chose to leave. Waddell’s article complements a number of articles on the history of churches and religion published by the Journal of the Civil War Era over the last few years.

Freddie Ping takes up the question of how Americans viewed national expansion in the postwar years, looking especially at the purchase of Alaska. Delving into opposition to US acquisition of Alaska, particularly by members of the US House of Representatives in 1868, Ping emphasizes intertwined concerns about climate, geography, and race. In “‘A System of Foreign Colonies’: Space, Nation, and Empire in the Alaska Purchase,” he demonstrates that many Americans subscribed to a vision of climate and geography that wrongly construed Alaska as frigid and largely uninhabitable, at least by people of European descent, and that they also worried that in adding a territory that was not contiguous with the rest of the country, the United States would take on the undesirable attributes of European empires. Although the House did vote to fund the Alaska purchase, opponents’ concerns remained part of political discourse in the United States, reappearing in later debates about the Dominican Republican, Hawai‘i, Guam, American Samoa, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The Alaska question in the 1860s, then, comes squarely into view as in important part of postwar debates about the United States’ geographical limits.

We applaud and seek to encourage early-career scholars’ desires to publish their work. This issue is published as the JCWE hosts a second round of article workshops for junior scholars. In our 2025 workshops, historians convened in small groups on Zoom, each gathering mentored by a senior person in the field. They workshopped their own pieces and discussed what journals look for in articles. In late 2025 and early 2026, we began to see the fruits of those workshops in the form of article submissions. We are excited to be able to run this program again in summer and fall 2026.

Gregory Ablavsky’s review essay draws on recent work in Native American history to suggest characterizing the period from the 1820s through the 1880s as a “long Removal” era. In dialogue with Elliott West’s formulation of a “Greater Reconstruction,” Ablavsky invites us to envision post–Civil War developments that are typically considered new departures (including the Plains “Indian Wars” and the end of treaty-making in 1871) as more consistent with the prewar period than previously thought. With nuanced attention to continuity and change, the article also suggests how, in Native American history as in other areas, the states are often laboratories for policies later adopted by the federal government. Our slate of book reviews reveals the vibrancy of the field as well as the generosity of our many colleagues who agree to review books for the journal, thus helping to ensure that people’s work is read and appreciated. Speaking of the book review section, we’re delighted to announce that book review editor Megan Bever has agreed to stay with the journal for a second three-year term. We love what Megan has done with the book review section, including not just her excellent book selections and editing but also her online video interviews with authors, found on Muster.

This calendar year’s special issues have prevented us, until now, from announcing the addition of a new staff member to the journal, Sheena Carroll. Sheena came on board more than a year ago and is doing double duty as the JCWE’s production manager and communications manager for the Richards Center. We’re excited to be working with her. We also announce our newish graduate assistant, Cameron Sauers, who is a PhD candidate at Penn State and joined us in summer 2025. A belated welcome to Sheena and Cameron!