Grape & Canister

A Message for My Paid Subscribers

Mark your calendars. The first book club meeting is scheduled for Sunday, March 26 at 7pm. We will be meeting to discuss Clint Smith’s book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. All paid members will receive a link for a Zoom meeting and you can decide if you want to participate.

“Harvest of Death” (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

I hope you enjoyed my first video interview with historian Hilary Green. Next month I am excited to interview Garry Adelman. Garry has worked with the American Battlefield Trust (formerly the Civil War Trust) for a number of years in various capacities. He is also a Gettysburg Licensed Guide and an expert on Civil War photography. We are going to talk about whether Civil War battlefields still matter in 2023 and what a good battlefield tour looks like. We are also going to examine some of Garry’s favorite Civil War photographs, including the famous and controvesial “Harvest of Death” photograph. This is going to be an engaging and fun conversation.

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In the News

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration continues its political witch hunt against his own educators. The latest salvo is the decision to ban the College Board’s new pilot AP course on African-American history. It will come as no surprise that the state is accusing College Board of indoctrinating students through the teaching of Critical Race Theory. It’s complete nonsense. The College Board is first and foremost a business. As someone who taught the AP course in United States history for years, I can attest that its curriculum falls right down the middle. They do very little to rock the boat. There is nothing controversial and though I have not reviewed the curriculum for this new course, I suspect that the same holds true. This is nothing more than an attempt on the part of DeSantis to push his political agenda and position himself for the 2024 presidential race. Sad

Kelli Lemon and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Paul Williams discuss what should be done with public spaces throughout Richmond that once included Confederate monuments.

Historians Francis M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant share a preview of their forthcoming book on young boys who served in the Union army. I am really looking forward to this book, especially given Clarke’s previous study on how Northerners told stories of war.

Kidada Williams’s new book on violence during the Reconstruction era was released this week. It’s a book that many historians have been looking forward to reading. My copy arrived yesterday. Here is a review of the book.

Today the state of Texas is honoring Confederate Heroes Day. Legislators are hoping that this will be its last year.

New to the Civil War Memory Library

Benjamin L. Carp, The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2023).

Jefferson Cowie, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Basic, 2023). [I am just about finished with this one and I can’t recommend it enough. Will review it soon on the podcast.]

Jacqueline Jones, No Right To An Honest Living: The Struggle of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era (Basic, 2023).

Kidada Williams: I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction (Bloomsbury, 2023).

Ilyon Woo, Master Slave, Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 2023).

Videos

Here is Gary Gallagher and Harold Holzer discussing Bruce Catton’s famous trilogy of the Army of the Potomac.

Otis

I leave you with a recent pic of Otis living his best life in Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, where we take our afternoon walk.