Grape & Canister
News, Books, Videos, and an Otis pic
Substack Community
Reminder: Our next book group meeting will take place on May 21 at 7PM. A zoom link will be emailed to all paid subscribers a few days in advance. We will be discussing Erin L. Thompson’s book, Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments. Please make an effort to at least read the introduction and first chapter if you plan on attending. Thank you.
News
The Sons of Confederate Veterans in Gwinnett County, Georgia are suing to restore a Confederate monument that was removed in 2021 from in front of the historic courthouse. I have no doubt that this is a lost cause.
A Florida teacher is under investigation for showing students a video celebrating Confederate History Month. The news here is not so much that the video was shown, but the immediate backlash from the parents. Good to see.
A new history museum opened in Gettysburg this weekend. I look forward to visiting in June.
Videos
A reminder that last week I interviewed Peter Carmichael about Civil War battlefields. We had a lot of fun and I think you are going to find it both entertaining and engaging.
Check out this excellent panel discussion about Civil War photography at Gettysburg featuring William Frassanito.
dd
New to the Civil War Memory Library
J. Gregory Acken ed., Through Blood and Fire: The Civil War Letters of Major Charles J. Mills, 1862-1865 (Kent State University Press, 2023).
Beth Bailey, An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Raical Crisis in the Vietnam Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).
W. Fitzhugh Brundage ed., A New History of the American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).
Stephen Kantrowitz, Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the Nineteenth-Century United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).
Leslie A. Schwalm, Medicine, Science & Making Race in Civil War America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).
Chad L. Williams, The Wounded War: W.E.B. Du Bois and the First World War (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023).
Otis
Hello, Otis! So handsome and you always look content - your humans must be very good to you 🥰❤️🐾
I'm looking forward to our meeting next month. I have the book in-hand and will take it on my next trip for airport and in-flight reading. That will give me more than enough time to read the intro and first chapter.
I find the title intriguing. I hope there's discussion of whether these are, really, America's public monuments or the CSA's monuments. Or maybe, there's a discussion topic around use of the word America today and if that, by default, now includes the CSA. *sigh*