“I’ll Take That Chance and Live, Too”: Pvt. Judson Spofford, 10th Vermont...
During the summer of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln pleaded for 300,000 more volunteers to help put down the rebellion. Hundreds of thousands of men answered the call. Thousands of boys joined, too....
View ArticleShrouded Veterans: Bvt. Brig. Gen. George W. Gowen
Bvt. Brig. Gen. George W. Gowen A veteran headstone was placed at Brevet Brigadier General George W. Gowen’s grave. On August 20, 1861, Gowen, a mining engineer before the Civil War, was appointed a...
View ArticleBook Review: On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua...
On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. By Ronald C. White. New York: Random House, 2023. 445 pp. Hardcover, $35.00. Reviewed by Brian Swartz Resurrected from...
View ArticleBook Review: Wars Civil and Great: The American Experience in the Civil War...
Wars Civil and Great: The American Experience in the Civil War and World War I. Edited by David J. Silbey and Kanisorn Wongrichanalai. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 2023. Softcover. 304pp....
View Article“We Helped Them Escape Whenever We Could”: Southern Claims Commission Records...
On July 11, 1866, Petersburg, Virginia’s Philip Sewell Sr. and his son, Philip Sewell Jr., filed a request with the Freedmen’s Bureau for the reimbursement of property taken from them by Pennsylvania...
View Article“We Helped Them Escape Whenever We Could”: Southern Claims Commission Records...
You may read Part I here. It was not uncommon for the Confederate military to impress free men of color to serve as laborers on fortifications, in their hospitals as stewards and nurses, in their camps...
View ArticleBook Review: The Autobiography of Joshua Chamberlain: The Major Writings
The Autobiography of Joshua Chamberlain: The Major Writings, Edited by Thomas A. Desjardins. Essex, CT: Down East Books, 2024. Hardcover, 155 pp, $28.95. Reviewed by Brian Swartz Rather than hear his...
View ArticleTales from a Monk in the Union Army: A Solitary Monk
Part of a series. By November 1864, the St. Vincent monks—once united under the banner of the 61st Pennsylvania—now found themselves separated. Brother Bonaventure Gaul was the only one that remained...
View ArticleNow Available from the Emerging Civil War Series: A Grand Opening Squandered:...
We’re kicking this year off with a bang! This time, we are digging into the trenches of Petersburg with Sean Michael Chick as he explores the intense four-day clash that marked a missed Union...
View ArticleStacking Arms: The Cockade City Unravels
In the spring of 1865, U.S. Grant literally stretched the Army of Northern Virginia to its breaking point. His offensive movements in late March forced Robert E. Lee, entrenched around the city of...
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