America’s Civil War September 2010

Inside this issue:

• An interview with Antietam National Battlefield Superintendent John Howard, who will be retiring at the end of this year.
• Harold Holzer’s Cease Fire asks When will all of us finally admit what caused the war?  This one is sure to raise eyebrows for more than the reason obvious in the title.
• Ron Soodalter on Hampton’s Beefsteak Raid of September, 1864.
• A look at the correspondence between William T. Sherman and John B. Hood at Atlanta in September, 1864.
• Winston Groom examines the causes of the war in Irreconcilable Differences.
• Charlie Knight (look for an interview with him on his new book Valley Thunder here soon) on Franz Sigel’s Shame in the Shenandoah.
• Antietam National Battlefield Chief Historian Ted Alexander’s Witness to Battle discusses soldier/artist James Hope’s paintings of the September 17, 1852 battle.
• Ron Soodalter shows up again with Getting Away with Murder, a study of officers who met their ends during the war in ways less typical.

Book reviews/previews in this issue:  

• Christian G. Samito, Becoming Americans Under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship During the Civil War Era.
• Sam Davis Elliot, Isham G. Harris of Tennessee: Confederate Governor and United States Senator.
• Stephen R. Taffe, Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership During the Civil War.
• Dennis W. Belcher, The 10th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War: A History and Roster.
• Madison Smartt Bell, Devil’s Dream: A Novel About Nathan Bedford Forrest.
• Joseph G. Bilby, New Jersey Goes to War: Biographies of 150 New Jerseyans Caught Up in the Struggle of the Civil War, Including Soldiers, Civilians, Men, Women, Heroes, Scoundrels – and a Heroic Horse.
• Lt. Col. Tom McKenney, Battlefield Sniper: Over 100 Civil War Kills (This is a reprint or update of, Jack Hinson’s One-Man War: A Civil War Sniper)
• I previewed four books: James and Suzanne Gindlesperger & John F. Blair, So You Think You Know Gettysburg: The Stories Behind the Monuments and the Men Who Fought One of America’s Most Epic Battles; Kevin Daugherty, Strangling the Confederacy: Coastal Operations in the American Civil War; Charles A. Misulia, Columbus, Georgia 1865: The Last True Battle of the Civil War; and Mary Bobbitt Townsend, Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus.

First Bull Run on Another Blog

Mike Noirot has a post up about First Bull Run at his Civil War Battles and Battlefields blog.  He also includes links to his photos of the battlefield, and to his summary of the battle (I have a few quibbles – for instance, I think he mixes up which Confederate brigades belonged to Beauregard’s army and which belonged to Johnston’s) but it’s worth a look.