The Augusta Powder Works operated until April 1865 when the Confederacy surrendered and the Civil War ended. During operation the works manufactured about 7,000 pounds of gunpowder a day for a total of 2,750,000 pounds produced during the war. The Confederate Powder Works was the only permanent, industrial complex constructed by the Confederate States of America.
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Following Lee’s retreat from Antietam proved deadly for the Union 5th Corps at the Battle of Shepherdstown. One of West Virginia’s largest Civil War battles, it was largely inconsequential in terms of stalling Lee’s retreat. However, it was an unforgettable event for the men who fought it.
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This is an interview with Ron Roth about his recent book, The Civil War in the South Carolina Lowcountry: How a Confederate Artillery Battery and a Black Union Regiment Defined the War.
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Beaufort, South Carolina was the epitome of the antebellum south. The production of coveted Sea Islands cotton created a community of wealthy, gentile white southerners who lived in their showcase Beaufort mansions surrounded by the slave force that sustained them. Placing the experiences of two units (one white and Confederate, the other black and Union), Ron Roth gives the reader a localized history of the Beaufort area that is fully contextualized in the larger military, political, economic, and social events of the Civil War.
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The conversation over Civil War memory and Confederate monuments is rapidly evolving this year. While many states and communities are making decisions about local Confederate monuments, there has been a lot of discussion recently about proposed legislation now being considered in Congress. H.R. 7608 “State, Foreign Operations, Agriculture, Rural Development, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2021” contains three sections which deal with Confederate flags, Confederate Monuments, and Confederate names.
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For players of traditional Civil War wargames, the hexagonal battle map where they can move carefully researched units to gain tactical objectives will be very familiar. Now, however, a new game allows you to be in the center of the action. A Civil War first person shooter, online multiplayer game is now on the gaming scene.
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This is an interview with historian Dr. Sarah Handley-Cousins about her new book Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North.
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In Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North, Sarah Handley-Cousins brings the reader past the medical fascination and bare statistics of Civil War casualties and injuries to look at Civil War disability from a more social and cultural view. The amputated leg or empty sleeve were prominent symbols of Civil War disability and the sacrifice of Union soldiers, but Handley-Cousins moves past that more visible and often used disability to examine those injuries less visible and more hidden. In doing so she gives the reader a fuller and more human perspective on the lasting impact of the Civil War.
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Gettysburg is a field of monuments. Visitors to the battlefield today see hundreds of monuments marking the field, dedicated to units, individuals, and states. The creation of this commemorative landscape was a process over time, with the first monument placed in 1867 and the most recent in 2013. The first timelapse shows all of the Gettysburg monuments from 1863 to 2020. There are also timelapses for specifically Union and Confederate monuments.
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This is an interview with author S. C. Gwynne about his recent book Hymns of the Republic.
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Gwynne begins his narrative of the final year of the Civil War with the arrival of General Ulysses S. Grant to Washington, D.C. in March 1864 after his promotion to command of all Union armies and finishes with Clara Barton raising the flag over the new cemetery at Andersonville and the liberation of the slaves. These bookends demonstrate the broad scope of Gwynne’s telling of 1864-1865. Hymns of the Republic brings the readers through the military campaigns of 1864 and 1865 and weaves them together with the political events of that year, the impact of slavery on the war and the increasing role of USCT on the battlefields, and some of the impact of the fighting off the field. The strength of this book is Gwynne’s ability to craft a compelling narrative and engage the reader by building the stories of people and events.
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While Perryville gets buried under more “famous” 1862 battles such as Antietam and Fredericksburg, it was the largest battle to occur in Kentucky and it was a key part of the fight to control the border states. About one-fifth of the combatants became casualties, making Perryville one of the bloodier battles of the war when looking at that ratio. It is a well-preserved and well-interpreted site and is well worth a visit.
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Panelists were Elizabeth Barnes (University of Reading), “‘I Saw Their Stars’: Race, Rape, and Policing in the Reconstruction South;” Bradley D. Proctor (Evergreen State College), “Southern Policing and the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction;” and Samuel Watts (University of Melbourne), “Reconstruction Justice: Black Law Enforcement and the Politics of Space in Charleston and New Orleans.”
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Panelists were Courtney Buchkoski (University of Oklahoma), “Lessons from Kansas: The New England Emigrant Aid Company and Imperial Projects in the Reconstruction Era;” Evan Rothera (Sam Houston State University), “The Complete Triumph of National Arms in the Cause of the Republican Constitutional Government: Anti-Imperialism and U.S./Mexico Relations;” and Cecily Zander (Pennsylvania State University), “The Great Task Remaining: The Reconstruction-Era Army in Texas.”
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This roundtable discussed the role of historians in countering bad historical interpretation and supporting a narrative that challenges white supremacy in our current society. Presiding was Redell Hearn of the Mississippi Museum of Art and Tougaloo College, and panelists were John Hayes (Augusta University), Robert Luckett (Jackson State University), Anthony Dixon (Bethune-Cookman University), and Rachel Stephens (University of Alabama).
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The panelists were Judith Giesberg (Villanova University), “‘A Muster Roll of the American People’: The Making of the 1870 Census and Postwar National Sovereignty”; Evan A. Kutzler (Georgia Southwestern State University), “‘Seeing like a State,’ Smelling like a Sanitarian: The Landscape of Health in Civil War Prisons”; and James Kopaczewski (Temple University), “‘The Seed of Robbery…Reaps Its Harvest of Blood’: Placing Grant’s Peace Policy within Reconstruction America.”
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An interview with Christian Keller, author of The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy.
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Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are perhaps two of the most iconic Confederate figures and their relationship has been extolled and studied from the Civil War years to the present. Culminating in the resounding victory at Chancellorsville, after which Jackson lost his life, the partnership between Jackson and Lee has become stuff of legend and myth, as well as historical significance. In The Great Partnership Christian Keller examines the relationship between Lee and Jackson during the military campaigns of 1862 and 1863, the contemporary reaction to Jackson’s death, and how Jackson’s absence affected Lee and the rest of the army during the Gettysburg campaign. Keller analyzes Lee and Jackson through the lens of command and leadership and carefully examines the historical record to pull the historical narrative out of the myth that has grown around these two men.
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