Grape & Canister

In the News

Yesterday I posted my latest podcast episode for paid subscribers. In this installment I share some thoughts about Lindsey Fitzharris’s book, The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I.

I am also pleased to announce that historian Hilary Green has agreed to be my inaugural guest for a new series of video interviews. Hilary is one of the leading scholars of Civil War memory and is currently completing what promises to be a groundbreaking book on how African Americans have remembered and commemorated the Civil War era. This content will be available exclusively to paid members. You are not going to want to miss it.

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A good friend shared this fascinating essay by historian Ty Seidule, which I believe is the subject of his next book. In 1971 Black cadets at West Point staged a successful protest against plans to erect and dedicate a Confederate monument on their campus. The proposal was initiated by President Richard Nixon, who hoped to use the dedication to strengthen his support with white Southerners and counter George Wallace’s growing popularity. This is well worth reading. [The essay begins on p. 55.]

Source: The Hudson River Valley Review

The Atlanta History Center will soon debut a new film and website on the history of the Confederate monument at Stone Mountain. It’s incredibly encouraging to see this museum taking the lead on highlighting this complex and controversial history for the benefit of local residents and the broader public.

The Washington Post recently featured this excellent profile piece about Devon Henry, the African-American contractor who accepted the job of removing Richmond's Confederate monuments.

A sculptor has been selected for the new Barbara Johns statue, which will represent Virginia in the United States Capitol and serve as a replacement for a recently removed statue of Robert E. Lee.

Video

Yesterday Republican representative Scott Perry invoked Frederick Douglass in his nomination of Byron Donald as Speaker of the House. It’s a bizarre reference given that Douglass likely would have nothing to do with today’s Republican Party, but it also serves as a reminder that politics has always been wrapped up in Civil War memory.

Here is a recent lecture by historian Gary Gallagher on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 that took place at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.

Historian Terry Alford recently spoke at Mississippi State University on Lincoln and the Civil War.

I highly recommend his most recent book, In the Houses of Their Dead: The Lincoln, The Booths, and The Spirits.

New to the Civil War Memory Library

Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer eds, Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past (Basic Books, 2023).

Adam D. Mendelsohn, Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army (New York University Press, 2022).

Ethan S. Rafuse, From the Mountains to the Bay: The War in Virginia, January—May 1862 (University Press of Kansas, 2022).

Otis

Sort of how I feel today.