News coverage of the Civil War anniversary spiked this week as various groups commemorated 150 years since Jefferson Davis’s swearing-in as Provisional President of the Confederacy on February 18, 1861.  USA Today offered a thoughtful overview of the tensions underlying the impending anniversaries in a piece entitled, “Across the South, the Civil War in an [...]

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Just 150 years ago today on Saturday afternoon, February 16, 1861, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln met twelve-year-old Grace Bedell on a train platform in Westfield, New York.  Showing off his new facial hair, he kissed the young girl and reportedly said, ““You see I have let these whiskers grow for you, Grace.” If you know this [...]

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There is a video on the YouTube channel of the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) that offers a classic teaching moment. The video, entitled “Sesquicentennial Celebration,” urges those about to honor the 150th anniversary of the “War for Southern Independence” to remember what the SCV claims the war was really about. [...]

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One hundred and fifty years ago today, the Charles Town, Virgina (there wasn’t a West Virginia yet)Free Press commented on reports that the state’s Breckinridge Democrats had abandoned a plank from their “national” party platform by repudiating support for the Pacific Railroad. This one little piece of fewer than 200 words illustrates how complicated the [...]

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Sam Wilkeson was a war correspondent for the New York Times who had sons in the Union army, including Lt. Bayard Wilkeson, an artillery officer who was mortally wounded on the first day at Gettysburg. The story of Bayard’s death became a northern sensation since he was one of the youngest artillery officers in the [...]

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One of the great wonders of the digital age is the ability to read rare books and documents from your desktop. Admittedly, reading online isn’t always easy or fun, but nothing compares to ease of access or the ability to search the full text of these resources. A great case study for this brave new [...]

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James McPherson writes in Battle Cry of Freedom (1989) that “On all issues but one, antebellum southerners stood for state’s rights and a weak federal government” (p. 78). Yet that one exception –the fugitive slave law– was a principal cause of the coming Civil War and potentially changes one’s view of the war’s meaning. White [...]

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On Tuesday, January 26, 2010, I am beginning my Civil War Era history class with a quotation from Frederick Douglas at the top of my syllabus. “I shall never forget the difference,” the great activist claimed in 1894, “between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery; between those who fought to [...]

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This month the Journal of American History published a special issue on Abraham Lincoln where I contributed an essay which claimed that the future of Lincoln studies lies mainly in digital work –both in new, ambitious research projects and also in innovative forms of web-based presentation.  Okay, so I realize this claim seems more than [...]

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This year a freshman at Miami University in Ohio discovered a rare fingerprint from Abraham Lincoln just barely visible on one of his letters housed within the college’s archives.  Lydia Smith, now a psychology major, made the discovery in November 2008 while examining a letter that Lincoln wrote on October 5, 1863.   John Lupton, director [...]

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