Grape & Canister

A roundup of Civil War news, books, videos, and an Otis pic

Upcoming Presentations

This promises to be a very busy year for me. I’ve got a number of talks, tours, and teacher workshops already scheduled. I am especially excited about two upcoming presentations that I want to bring to your attention.

First, in May I will be traveling to Monterey, California to take part in the Central Coast Conference, organized by David Woodbury. I will be joining a wonderful group of historians for this two-day conference. I’ve never been to California and I hear Monterey is particularly beautiful. Hope you can join us.

The following month I will travel to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to take part in the Civil War Institute’s annual conference between June 13 and 18. This promises to be another intellectually stimulating five days, but it will also be a very emotional occasion as we honor the memory of historian and institute director Peter Carmichael, who passed away unexpectedly last summer.

CWI is graciously offering a 15% discount on tuition to readers of this newsletter. Just use the discount code: PAR.

I’ve been attending CWI since 2012. It’s an opportunity to interact with fellow Civil War enthusiasts and some of the most talented people in the field. I will take part in a panel discussion on public history and lead a discussion about enslaved labor during the Gettysburg Campaign during a lunch “dine-in” session.

News

Democrats in Mississippi are working to replace the two statues in the Capitol Building’s Statuary Hall with civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and Hiram Revels, the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1870. Mississippi currently honors Confederate president Jefferson Davis and James Z. George, who served as a captain in the 20th Mississippi and later represented the state in the U.S. Senate.

This is certainly a long shot given the current political climate, but it does reflect the overall trend of public memory of the Civil War. Mississippi is an interesting state. On the one hand, it finally changed its state flag a few years ago, but it remains one of two states that honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert E. Lee on the same day.

(Source: Mississippi Free Press)

On the subject of statues, A group studying where to put South Carolina’s first Statehouse monument to an individual African American has decided Robert Smalls’ statue should be staring down a notorious white supremacist. A committee has voted to send its suggestion of the design and placement of the statue to the General Assembly. Smalls would be located across from a statue of “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman who as governor worked to dismantle most of the former slave’s work to gain equality in voting and education for African Americans after the Civil War.

(Source: Index-Journal)

Good news out of Beaufort, South Carolina. The home of Robert Smalls House will soon be open to visitors, though I am disappointed to hear that it will not be transferred to or managed by the Reconstruction Era National Park (NPS).

Check out historian David Swartz’s podcast “Rebel on Main,” which focuses on his home town of Jessamine County, Kentucky. His podcast explores the controversy surrounding its Confederate statue and the broader community which also includes Camp Nelson, a Union supply depot and emancipation center. David is currently working on a book about the history of his home.

I am not sure I agree with Jonathan Martin’s assessment of Jimmy Carter’s place in Civil War memory, but it’s worth reading.

Jonathan Martin writes about Jimmy Carter’s place in the history of the South and Civil War memory.

As the former president is laid to rest this week, his critics and enthusiasts are at odds about what his presidency meant to the country and the world. But there should be no debate about what the son of Plains, Georgia, meant for the South.

I think there is plenty of debate about this, but the piece is nevertheless worth reading.

Here is Carter discussing the Confederate flag with Diane Rehm back in 2015.

Books

Christa Dierksheide, Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Ninteenth-Century America (Yale University Press, 2024).

Douglas Edgerton, A Man on Fire: The Worlds of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Robert G. Parkinson, Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horro on the Early Frontier (Norton, 2024).

Michael Vorenberg, Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War (Knopf, 2025).

Videos

By 1864, Fredericksburg, Virginia, was a city of hospitals. Just miles to the west and the south, The Overland Campaign raged on, resulting in thousands upon thousands of wounded soldiers from the North and the South. On May 20, 1864, photographer James Gardner traveled to Fredericksburg to capture images of the wounded, including one of the most famous photographs of the entire Civil War.

In 1925, a visitor to Shiloh National Military Park made an offhand comment about a battlefield map oriented the wrong way. The comment caught the attention of the superintendent who happened to be on duty. A conversation ensued. Here's what they talked about.

In Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1865, throngs of citizens and soldiers witnessed the solemn procession as the late President Abraham Lincoln's remains as they were transported from the White House to the Capitol Building to lay in state. The solemnity of the occasion, heightened by Victorian traditions of mourning and a prayer by the former Chaplain of the Senate, was captured by a report in The Washington Chronicle newspaper.

Here is historian Timothy Smith discussing Confederate general Albert Sydney Johnston.

Live Chats

I am going to start up my live chats again in the coming days. These are informal sessions that take place at different times during the week. I will use this platform to share new books, interview guests and answer your questions. A few of these live chat sessions will be open to all subscribers, but most will be open to paid subscribers only. All you have to do to take part is download the app.

You will receive a notice when the live chat begins and you can decide whether you want to join. This is proving to be one of my favorite ways to reach my readers.

Otis

Does Otis enjoy the snow? You decide.