Grape & Canister

A roundup of Civil War News, Books, Videos, and an Otis pic

Martin Milmore’s monument commemorating the end of slavery and the preservation of the Union in Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, MA)

News

A few weeks ago I posted a short video of a Black Civil War reenactor responding to a question about the existence of Black Confederate soldiers. I was so impressed with his response that I decided to seek out the individual and request an interview for this newsletter. I am pleased to share that next week I will interview Mr. Ed Gantt about his experience as a reenactor of Black Union soldiers, how he handles situations like the one just described as well as a number of other subjects. This is going to be a must-see interview, but it will only be available to paid subscribers. so update your subscription today so you don’t miss it.

Last week I led a 2-day tour of Civil War Boston for a group from Penn State’s George and Ann Richard’s Civil War Center. We had a wonderful time as we toured sites on the Boston Common, Beacon Hill as well as the Cambridge Common and Mount Auburn Cemetery. I am available for higher if you are interested in setting up a tour for you, your family or organization.

PRRI has released a new survey of attitudes toward Confederate statues and a whole host of related issues. This is a follow-up survey from one completed in 2022. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that little has changed.

Historians Susannah J. Ural and Ann Marsh Daly have written a fabulous piece on a pre-Juneteenth emancipation celebration in Louisiana in 1864.

Accounts from New Orleans in the summer of 1864, in a city that was once the country’s largest slave market, confirm that the moment of liberation was America’s second Independence Day—and as in 1776, it marked the beginning of a fight, not the end. New Orleans’s celebrations were the first battle cry in African Americans’ struggle to achieve something more than freedom.

At the end of the summer, 10 formerly enslaved men decided to publish a history of the summer’s events, the story found in the thin volume. Their pamphlet was a direct rebuke of state laws banning enslaved people from learning to read or write, much less voicing their demands in print. This specific volume—which demonstrated the authors’ educational accomplishments and their skills as printers and editors—was designed to inspire a man they considered an ally, though sometimes a reluctant one. We don’t know how many copies of Emancipation Celebration they printed in 1864; few exist today. But this one, expensively bound in red leather with silver edging, likely survived because, as the brass plate on its cover reveals, it was a gift to His Excellency A. Lincoln from the Free Colored People, New Orleans.

Last week House Republicans overwhelmingly voted to reinstall the Confedeate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, which was removed in December 2023. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who continues to refer to the memorial as the “Reconciliation Memorial” even though no one at the time of its dedication in 1914 referred to it as such. This is little more than cheap politics and presentism. The amendment failed to pass.

The NAACP is suing Shenandoah County, Virginia over the renaming of their schools in honor of Confederate leaders. The lawsuit asserts:

When Black students are compelled to attend schools that glorify the leaders and ideals of the Confederacy, they are subject to a racially discriminatory educational environment, which has significant psychological, academic, and social effects.

Historian Gary Gallagher briefly reflects on Union general George B. McClellan.

McClellan’s approach to waging war percolated down from headquarters to subordinates of every grade. As head of the army for its first 15 months, he sought to avoid an all-out effort that targeted slavery and Rebel civilian property, preferring instead to beat the Confederates just enough to convince them they should return to the United States.

Books

Robin Bernstein, Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America's Original Prison for Profit (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

William Hogeland, The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money and Power in the American Founding (FSG, 2024). [One of the best Hamilton books that I have ever read. Can’t recommend it enough.]

John Swanson Jacobs, The United States Governed By Six Hundred Thousand Despots (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

William Sturkey, The Ballad of Roy Benavidez: The Life and Times of America’s Most Famous Hispanic War Hero (Basic Books, 2024).

Videos

My friend and fellow educator Peter Vermilyea has just published a new book about the Civil War in Litchfield, Connecticut.

What was the difference between artillery and heavy artillery units during the American Civil War? Douglas Ullman, Jr. breaks down these "hybrid" units that doubled as artillerists and infantrymen.

I recently interviewed historian Robert Colby about his new book on the slave trade during the Civil War, but here he is speaking at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond.

Otis

This past Sunday we celebrated Otis’s third birthday. This big guy enjoyed his favorite treats and a romp around the yard with two of his best friends. Here is a bonus pic of me holding Otis at roughly 10 weeks and 80 pounds lighter and a more recent one taken in Maine.