Civil War Times December 2017

Editor’s note: Since the October issue appeared with its article containing the 15 opinions regarding Confederate monument removal, that situation has rapidly escalated. Riots and death have occurred in Charlottesville, Va., and monuments in a number of cities have been removed, damaged, or vandalized. We received far more responses than we could print here, and the letters below represent the range of opinions we have received. I plan on using the October issue of Civil War Times, which examines the role of Confederate War Memorials in both of my middle school Civics classes in the forthcoming school year. I have great respect for the scholars who contributed to the issue and have personally worked with several of them. At Loudoun School for the Gifted, where I teach, we strive across curriculums to develop…

Historic Fort Negley, built atop St. Cloud Hill in Nashville, Tenn., is at the center of a skirmish over a redevelopment proposal launched by musical producer T-Bone Burnett. Following the Confederate retreat from Forts Henry and Donelson in February 1862, the occupying Union Army impressed a 2,700-person force of laborers—free blacks and escaped slaves, men and women alike—to build an elaborate stone fort overlooking the Cumberland River. An estimated 600-800 workers died during the three months of construction. After the war, the site grew to include ballparks, including the Herschel Greer Stadium. In 2004, the fort itself was restored and $1 million visitors center opened in 2007. But the dilapidated Greer Stadium has been abandoned since 2014, and the mixed-use development proposed by Burnett’s team on the site is close…

AFTER CHARLOTTESVILLE FOLLOWING THE VIOLENT conflict and tragic events at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., on August 12, 2017, Confederate monuments took center stage in the national debate. As this issue goes to press, officials in Maryland had taken a stand on the issue, and many other communities have begun the discussion. The Baltimore City Council voted to remove Confederate monuments immediately, and four were taken down in the wee hours of August 16. That same day Maryland officials ordered the immediate removal of the statue of Roger Taney—the Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision ruling that blacks were not citizens—from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis, where it has stood since 1872. In response to the recent violence, descendants of Robert…

civilwardc .org Civil War Washington ranks among the best resources available online for U.S. Civil War scholars, writers, and teachers. Despite its narrow geographic focus, the site’s collaborative nature results in a digital collection that touches on literature, journalism, medicine, labor, military affairs, politics, geography, digital humanities, genealogy, science, and of course history. Civil War Washington is published by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UN-L) thanks in large part to support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the UN-L. It focuses on the period of 1860 through 1865 and restricts itself to the U.S. capital, but within that tight lens is a wealth of information. The site creators remind us that Washington tripled in size during the Civil War, and its population…

Hester Ann Wilkins Davis—member of the Maryland upper class and Union supporter—was a lifelong diarist, and the Maryland Historical Society’s recent acquisition of her Civil War diaries fills a gap in their extensive collection of her writings. Davis, then in her 50s, unloads on President Lincoln, penning on May 4, 1861, “I am no admirer of Lincoln or his cabinet. They are all trying to ape Jackson. To prove themselves men of nerve. We want firm men, but they must be statesmen also here the present Cabinet are lamentably deficient.” The Davis family supported the Union, but they also owned 60 slaves, who labored on the family’s lucrative tobacco farm. Over the course of the war, Davis observed a change in her slaves’ demeanor, writing in July of 1863, “in…

An extremely rare and frayed regimental battle flag from the 127th USCT, painted by prominent African American artist David Bustill Bowser, is undergoing restoration, thanks to The Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library in Philadelphia. The original banner, bearing the motto “We Will Prove Ourselves,” showed a soldier waving farewell to the Goddess of Liberty. The cost of repairing the shredded silk ranges up to $60,000. After restoration, the flag will go on display at the GAR Museum, which is Philadelphia’s only Civil War museum. The museum is open on Tuesdays from 12-4 p.m. and Sundays from 12-5 p.m. For more information, visit garmuslib.org. QUIZ WHO IS BURIED HERE? Send your answer via e-mail to dshoaf@ historynet.com or via regular mail (1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA, 22182-4038) marked “Stone…