Tag: military history

Two white men, one older and one younger, speaking in conversations.

Treason Made Odious Again: Reflections From the Naming Commission, and the Front Lines of the Army’s War on the Lost Cause

“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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Birds eye photograph of Jackson, NH

“Deceive and Inflame the Masses”: Placing Blame for New Hampshire Civil War Draft Resistance

Near midnight on a crisp October night in 1863, the brilliant fall foliage covering the flanks of the mountains in Jackson, New Hampshire, were suddenly awash in a bright glow. It was not an early dawn. The Forest Vale House, an inn nestled under the hulks of the White Mountains, ...
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The War of the Rebellion a European-style War?: Latin American Comparisons

The War of the Rebellion a European-style War?: Latin American Comparisons

The War of the Rebellion in North America has brought forth a massive number of studies in military history. Very few of them are comparative in nature.[1] In addition, there does not seem to be a corresponding scholarly interested in the many civil wars and revolutions in Latin America during ...
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"I Donte Want to Fight": One Union Soldier’s Struggle with Duty

“I Donte Want to Fight”: One Union Soldier’s Struggle with Duty

James Madison Jones wanted nothing more than to be out of the U.S. Army. The young father had enlisted in the 12th New Hampshire Infantry in August 1862, but once he donned the blue uniform and left his family behind, Jones regretted his decision. He tried–and failed–to renege on his ...
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Sustaining Motivations and the General Officer: Robert E. Lee and the Death of John Augustine Washington III

Sustaining Motivations and the General Officer: Robert E. Lee and the Death of John Augustine Washington III

Today we share our first post from new correspondent Barton A. Myers, who will be writing on soldiers, veterans, and military history broadly defined. Myers is Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and History and Associate Professor of Civil War History at Washington and Lee University and the author of ...
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Editor’s Note: June 2019 Issue

Today we share a preview of our June 2019 issue, reprinting here the editor's note by Judy Giesberg. To access these articles, you can purchase a copy of the issue or subscribe to the journal. It will also be available (in June) on Project Muse. Readers of this issue will ...
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Editor’s Note: March 2019 Issue

Our March 2019 issue is a special issue on veterans, with Susannah Ural serving as guest editor. Below you will find her note of introduction. To access these articles, you can purchase a copy of the issue or subscribe to the journal. It will also be available (in March) on ...
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Lessons from the Crimean War: The Augusta Arsenal

Lessons from the Crimean War: The Augusta Arsenal

In 1853 a conflict began that, for the first time since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, pitted most of the great powers of Europe against each other. What initially started as a conflict between the Russian and Ottoman empires quickly escalated to involve the western European maritime ...
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A Bird's Eye View of the Civil War: The Virtues of a Transnational Perspective

A Bird’s Eye View of the Civil War: The Virtues of a Transnational Perspective

Teaching the Civil War takes juggling some very broad, diverse, complex processes in the histories of slavery and freedom, of nationalism, citizenship and state building, of Indian Nations and the West, of modern warfare, of economic transformation of the economy, and of the ways in which people thought about life, ...
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Teaching with Statistics: A Case Study

Teaching with Statistics: A Case Study

My great friend Kevin Lambert at California State University, Fullerton says, “Nothing is more humanistic than numbers.” They bring order and precision to our lives, offer definitive and powerful evidence for us, and determine outcomes and decisions on the most difficult and emotionally wrenching issues. Although the work of historians ...
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Depiction of battle between Nez Perce and the U.S. Army

Teaching the West in the Civil War Era

Most courses on the Civil War and Reconstruction venture only briefly into the American West. Textbooks and lectures often dispense quickly with the region. They make fleeting forays into the Kansas and Missouri border wars, or the military conflict over the Mississippi River, before returning to a familiar North/South narrative ...
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Tad Brown, Earl Hess, and Dan Sutherland at the awards dinner, courtesy of the Society of Civil War Historians.

Earl J. Hess Accepts Tom Watson Brown Book Award

The Society of Civil War Historians Banquet is an anticipated event on the program of the Southern Historical Association’s Annual Meeting. It is an opportunity for Civil War historians to gather together for conversation over dinner and drinks and hear about a new book that has garnered much attention in ...
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