In this five-part review of Civil War Era literature at the Virginia History Blog, we will take a look at period topics in politics, war commands, home front, economy, slavery and memory. Turning to war commands, we begin with titles about three West Pointers from Virginia, Unionist George Thomas and Confederates Robert E. Lee and...
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In this five-part review of Civil War Era literature at the Virginia History Blog, we will take a look at period topics in politics, war commands, home front, economy, slavery and memory. Turning to politics, “Crucible of the Civil War” is a series of essays looking at the Virginia experience from secession through post-war commemorations....
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In this Virginia History Blog, we look at recent journal reviews concerning the Civil War Era. The commander featured is Robert E. Lee in “The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee”. Combat is represented in “The First Republican Army” about the western Virginia politically motivated Federal army, and “The Guerrilla Hunters” treating the Confederate Ranger...
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In this recap of the Civil War and Reconstruction Virginia, we begin with two titles addressing the role of slaves in the Civil War, first from a Union perspective in “The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation”, then from the rebel point of view in “Confederate Slave Impressment”. Two social histories chronicling the immediate...
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The Civil War in Virginia was markedly different from the experience of other Confederate states in its position as a front line state that was actively defended throughout the duration of the conflict by resident Confederate armies defending against repeated, not to say continuous Union incursions. We begin this blog with “Notes from the Ground”...
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We look at Civil War memory, white and black, in our Jim Crow Virginia part four. We begin with looking at how differences emerged in shared memories using “Race and Reunion”, “Cities of the Dead” and “Southern Past”. How women in associations and in their published writing of memoirs, novels and histories established the Lost...
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Our third blog on the Civil War in Virginia considers a biographical focus, social history and local histories during the Civil War. Starting with Confederate General “Robert E. Lee”, the review is paired with bibliographical references to five other prominent Civil War Virginians. “Southern Lady, Yankee Spy” is both biography and social history. Individual biographies are...
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In part two of Civil War in Virginia, we investigate the war issues of slavery and emancipation on both sides, Union and Confederate. In part three, we focus on Virginians and local histories of the war. We begin our look at Civil War slavery and emancipation with “Without Consent or Contract” that surveys the rise...
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We begin our first of three blogs on the Civil War in Virginia with reviews on five books in print and listing seven out of print books available online. Additional reviews on books about the Civil War are available at Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction under the subheading “Wars in Virginia, 1820-1883”. “Battle Cry of Freedom”...
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For those interested in the political and social history of Civil War home front Virginia, four books are recommended. Unionists, Secessionists, free blacks and slaves are studied in “Old Southampton”, from the sectional crisis through the conflict and into Reconstruction. The black Virginian experience in the Civil War, whether slave or free, for blue or...
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