Re-enacting at the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

I Company, 13th Virginia Volunteer Infantry July 12th, 2013 Fairfax, Virginia — UPDATE It is with sadness, loss, and regret that I add an edit to this blog entry as one of the hearty men of the “Lucky 13th”, SGT Charles Napier passed away last night.  (https://www.facebook.com/13thva) and the family of the 13th feels the …

Review: For Cause and Comrades

Review For Cause and Comrades For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. By James M. McPherson (1997) New York: Oxford University Press, Pp. xv + 178, ISBN 0-19-509023-3 (hardback) $25.00 U.S. Why do soldiers fight? Pulitzer-prize winning Civil War historian James McPherson grapples with this question in his deeply researched and …

Review: The Confederate Nation

Review Thomas The Confederate Nation The Confederate Nation: 1861-1865. By Emory M. Thomas (1979) New York: Harper & Row, Pp. xvi + 384, ISBN 0-06-131965-1 (paperback) $15 00 U.S. “To fulfill Southern nationalism, Confederate Southerners had to slaughter some of the sacred cows and overturn some of the shibboleths that had previously defined them as …

Review: Crisis of Fear

Review Channing Crisis of Fear Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina. By Steven A. Channing (1970) New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970 pp. 293, ISBN 671-20516-1 (hardcover) $7.95 U.S. “Secession was a revolution of passion and the passion was fear” (p. 293). Dr. Steven Channing’s political-historical drama analyzing the power of fear in South …

Review: On the Threshold of Freedom

Review Mohr On the Threshold On the Threshold Analysis On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia. By Clarence L. Mohr (1986) Athens: University of Georgia Press, pp. xxiii + 397, ISBN 0-8203-0941-9 (paperback) $35.00 U.S. Professor Clarence Mohr has been the chair of the Department of History at the University …

Review: Honor and Violence

Review Wyatt-Brown Honor and Violence Bertram Wyatt-Brown. Honor and Violence in the Old South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. x + 245 pp. $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-19-504242-5 Fortunately it is rare that such a troubled text as Honor and Violence appears in print. Nevertheless, there are exceptions; this one lives in re-print. Professor Emeritus …

Review: Mastering America

Bonner Mastering America Robert E. Bonner. Mastering America: Southern Slaveholders and the Crisis of American Nationhood. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xxii + 328 pp. $16.46 (pbk), ISBN 978-0-521-54177-0 One should consider notions of nationality with notions of revolution as a fundamental component of that revolution. Revolutionary peoples should have an idea of who …