Grape & Canister

A roundup of Civil War News, Books, Videos, and an Otis pic.

News

I am expecting to receive the peer reviews for my biography of Robert Gould Shaw, from the University of North Carolina Press, any day now. Here is a model of the assault on Battery Wagner by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Yes, those are cats. You can find this display in Gettysburg, PA. I highly recommend it.

(Photo by Rich Condon)

The Maryland County that gave us John Wilkes Booth has decided that the AP African American Studies course is just too divisive for its students.

‘The topics are heavily politically oriented and perpetuate the message of oppressed versus oppressor,’ Terri Kocher, a board member who voted against the class, said at the meeting. ‘I think we’re missing an opportunity to present positive messages of unity and great American contributions.’

As always, the sad thing is that students living in this county want to take this course.

This is a really interesting piece about who in York, Pennsylvania paid to protect the town from being burned by Confederate general Jubal Early in June 1863.

It’s likely that some noteworthy people gave using the names of others. Historian Charles Glatfelter has noted that Catherine Miller paid the collectors $1,000. The next year, she married into the wealthy family of tobacconist — cigarmaker — William Danner, a requisition collector whose name does not appear on either list.

It’s also possible that some leaders simply refused to pay. Committee member Thomas Cochrane’s name is missing from both lists, and the Gazette pointed out in publishing the list in 1865 that this owner of the competing York Republican was among the biggest critics of the surrender. James Latimer, the Republican who thought the borough authorities had acted “so sheepishly,” later reported that he “very foolishly” gave $100 to the solicitors, a decision he regretted.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Books

John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (FSG, 2024).

Lesley J. Gordon, Dread Danger: Cowardice and Combat in the American Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Videos

It seems like every few years we are treated to another sensational announcement questioning Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality. This latest documentary looks like an absolute disaster. I was sad to see historian Jean Baker and a representative of President Lincoln’s Cottage involved.

Here is another installment of the Battlefield Trust’s “Civil War Then and Now.” In this installment, Garry Adelman discusses the famous photograph of three Confederate prisoners takne at Gettysburg.

In the Civil War photograph collection at the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Va., is a glass plate copy of an original portrait of Confederate Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law and his military family. The whereabouts of the original portrait was a mystery—until it turned up at a collector's show in early 2024.

Otis

And finally, here is Otis enjoying the cool breezes on the Maine coast.