July 06, 2020

Editorial: West Virginia Must Confront Its Confederate Monuments

July 06, 2020/ Zac Cowsert

In the autumn of 1910, a crowd of thousands gathered on the capitol grounds in downtown Charleston, West Virginia. The women and men, many of whom were Confederate veterans adorned once again in gray, had come from all over West Virginia to witness the dedication of a monument to Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson…Among the crowd, civilians and veterans alike wore “Lily White” campaign buttons. In the early 1900s, the Lily White campaign called for the disfranchisement of African American voters.

The Jim Crow politics intertwined with the history of Charleston’s Stonewall Jackson statue speak to the complicated and racist legacies Confederate monuments often hold. In 1910, West Virginians who turned out to honor Stonewall Jackson’s legacy naturally linked that cause with the disfranchisement of black voters. They understood the relationship between racism and Confederate iconography

November 25, 2019

Interview with Christian Keller, author of The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy

November 25, 2019/ Kathleen Thompson

An interview with Christian Keller, author of The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy.

November 25, 2019

Review: The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy, by Christian Keller

November 25, 2019/ Kathleen Thompson

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.

July 31, 2017

Flying Dutchmen: The XI Corps at Chancellorsville

July 31, 2017/ Kathleen Thompson

In the aftermath of defeat at Chancellorsville, the XI Corps received the bulk of the blame. They had run, had crumbled under Jackson’s attack without resistance. They were labeled cowards and forevermore known as the “Flying Dutchmen.” The nickname was earned within a short period of time on the battlefield but the series of events that caused the XI Corps’ flight was put into action long before that moment, even before the armies knew they would meet in the Wilderness west of Fredericksburg.

July 02, 2015

Memories of Hazel Grove: The III Corps at Gettysburg

July 02, 2015/ Kathleen Thompson

Daniel Sickles was an infamous figure even before the war began. Sickles is notorious for his role in the Battle of Gettysburg, a role that was debated between generals and officers after the war, a debate that continues today. The III Corps under Sickles arrived at the battlefield over a period of time from the evening of July 1 after the fighting had calmed for the day into the morning of July 2. Meade intended the corps to extend his line along Cemetery Ridge, attaching themselves to the end of the II Corps line and ending at the base of Little Round Top. Whether Sickles misunderstood his orders or willfully disobeyed them, the III Corps ended up in another position entirely.

January 08, 2015

18,000: A Comparison of May 3, 1863 and May 12, 1864

January 08, 2015/ Chuck Welsko

On the morning of May 3, 1863, Confederate soldiers slunk through the thick foliage that dominated the Wilderness around the Orange Turnpike and the tiny hamlet of Chancellorsville, Virginia. Around 5:30am, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, outnumbered, outgunned, and divided, unleashed a series of brutal frontal assaults on the Union positions around the Chancellor House. By the late morning, over a span of five hours, the Confederates had battered and broken the will of Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, compelling him to abandon the intersection near Chancellorsville and retreat back towards the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers.

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