Grape & Canister

Civil War News, Books, Videos, and an Otis pic

Upcoming Talk

This Friday evening I will deliver the annual Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Legacy Lecture at the Pejepscot History Center in Brunswick, Maine. My topic will be the history and controversy surrouning Civil War/Confederate monuments. I am really looking forward to this event.

Would You Follow This Dog Into Battle?

My neighbor decided to have a little fun and asked AI to combine a photograph of a Bernese Mountain Dog and a Civil War general. The only problem is that Otis isn’t awake long enough during the course of the day to even plan a battle engagement.

News

I would be very surprised if there wasn’t a time capsule buried below the base of the Confederate monument in Arlington, but it’s not clear if there will be enough excavation of the site to locate it. Stay tuned.

Gabriel Arana explores the legacy of his great-grandfather and the broader question of how we commemorate and remember the past.

Here is the latest on the transformation of Marcus-David Peters/Lee Circle in Richmond, Virginia.

New to the Civil War Memory Library

Matthew Hulbert, Oracle of Lost Causes: John Newman Edwards and His Never-Ending Civil War (Bison Books, 2023).

Lauren Lassabe, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

Drew A. Swanson, A Man of Bad Reputation: The Murder of John Stephens and the Contested Landscape of North Carolina Reconstruction (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

Elizabeth Varon, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South (Simon & Schuster, 2023).

I am going to interview Professor Varon once I’ve had a chance to read the book.

Videos

Here is Garry Adelman scoring the battle scenes from some of the most popular Civil War movies.

Scott Hartwig, who just published volume 2 of his Antietam study, joins Jared Frederick to talk about the battle in film.

Historian Andrew Lang discusses the subject of American Exceptionalism during the Civil War era.

Otis

It’s hot here in Boston this week. Otis spends a minimum amount of time outside and the rest of the day by the air conditioner dreaming of snow.