Grape & Canister
My weekly roundup of Civil War news, videos, books, and an Otis pic.
Thanks to all of you who came out for the movie discussion this past Sunday. I thought it went really well. I especially enjoyed your insightful comments and questions. Stay tuned for an opportunity to suggest our next Civil War movie on Thursday. And don’t forget to upgrade if you would like to join us next time.
News
Former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, is taking every opportunity on the presidential campaign trail to highlight her role in removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds in 2015, following the murder of nine churchgoers in Charleston by Dylann Roof. Of course, the story is much more complicated and any analysis of Haley’s role must be framed by the fact that the Republican Party has largely embraced key elements of the Lost Cause in recent years.
The Virginia Beach City Council will vote today on what to do with a Confederate monument that had been removed back in 2020 and which remains in storage.
I am thrilled to see a new museum open up in Mobile, Alabama that focuses on the history and legacy of the slave ship Clotilda.
The Clotilda illegally transported 110 captive people from what is now the west African nation of Benin to Alabama. The captain, William Foster, transferred women, men and children off the Clotilda once it arrived in Mobile and set fire to the ship to hide evidence of the journey. Most of Clotilda didn’t burn, and much of the ship is still in the Mobile River, which empties into Mobile Bay.
Speaking of new museums, the International African American Museum recently opened in Charleston, South Carolina. I am looking forward to visiting in the next few months.
A new Abraham Lincoln letter, which had been in private hands for close to a century, was recently purchased by the Raab Collection in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Raab said the document showed the 16th president in his role as commander in chief in the early months of the Civil War, which began in 1861 and ended in 1865. He added that Colonel Ellet was a “very well-known engineer” and that his letters to Lincoln were digitized by the Library of Congress. In the letter, Lincoln directs Colonel Ellet to discuss the matter of the corps with Gens. Winfield Scott, George B. McClellan and James Totten, all of whom Mr. Raab described as major players in the war.
A small town in Minnesota will soon honor a Black Civil War soldier with a new monument.
Felix Battles was 5 feet, 8 inches tall according to his army enlistment papers. The monument will be life size because Krueger wants people to be able to look Battles in the eye as they contemplate the history he represents. It will be located on a street corner where Battles once lived. The home is long gone and the site is now part of the Minnesota State University Moorhead campus. The goal is to raise enough money for benches and a small interpretive display so the spot can be a community gathering point. Krueger calls the statue an illustration to a biography, a marker that allows more people to learn the story of Felix Battles and a forgotten piece of history.
Finally, check out the work of Gettysburg College students in their ongoing project called “State of the Confederacy—Mapping Confederate Monuments.” This latest installment focuses on Washington. D.C.
Videos
Here is my good friend and fellow historian Peter Carmichael leading a tour at Gettysburg about the thousands of enslaved men that accompanied Confederates into Pennsylvania. This will give you a taste of the tour that the two of us, along with Jill Titus, led last month.
Here is historian Hampton Newsome discussing his new book at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond.
Books
Burkhard Bilger, Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets (Random House, 2023).
Ronald S. Coddington, Gettysburg Faces: Portraits and Personal Accounts (Gettysburg Publishing, 2022).
David S. Sibley and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai eds., Wars Civil War and Great: The American Experience in the Civi War and World War I (University Press of Kansas, 2023).
Robert J. Wynstra, The Rashness of the Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson (Savas Beatie, 2010).
Otis
