Grape & Canister

In the News

This story hit a little too close to home for me. Here in Boston, we’ve experienced an uptick in Neo-Nazi marches over the past few months. Last weekend a small group demonstrated in front of the Civil War monument in Jamaica Plain, about a mile from our home. Unfortunately, I missed being able to counter-demonstrate, but I will certainly make it a point to be there if and when they return. It’s one of my favorite Civil War monuments.

Source: Massachusetts Civil War Monument Project

Devon Henry, who was contracted by the city of Richmond to remove its Confederate monuments back in 2020, is selling NFTs to raise money for charity.

Video

I missed posting this video back in April. Historian Barbara Gannon visited the Massachusetts Historical Society to discuss her ongoing project to identify and commemorate the Black soldiers who are buried in an unmarked grave on the Olustee battlefield in Florida. This is a project that she is working on with her students at the University of Central Florida.

The battlefield is not overseen by the National Park Service and has long been a site of Lost Cause commemoration. I can’t think of a more important project right now in the field of Civil War history.

Here is a panel discussion that took place at the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in June. Panelists discuss how the Civil War was marketed in Gilded Age America. The presenters contributed essays on the subject to a wonderful new essay collection edited by Jim Marten and Caroline Janney.

New to the Civil War Memory Library

Terry Alford, In the Houses of Their Dead: The Lincolns, The Booths, and the Spirits (Liveright, 2022).

Just started and thoroughly enjoying this one.

Otis

My wife recently asked me what would happen if Otis was the First Dog of the United States. I immediately responded: World Peace.