An Unholy Traffic: How the Slave Trade Continued Through the US Civil War

In a new book, Robert KD Colby of the University of Mississippi shows how the Confederacy remained committed to slavery.
People celebrating the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

Lincoln’s Imagined West

In Lincoln’s view the West represented a space for opportunity, especially for the citizen-soldiers returning to their prewar pursuits.
Political cartoon of the Lincoln Administration, reading "Running the 'Machine'", 1864.

Blues, Grays & Greenbacks

How Lincoln's administration financed the Civil War and transformed the nation's decentralized economy into the global juggernaut of the postwar centuries.

The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War

Explore the lives of people swept up in the great dramas of slavery, war, and emancipation in this updated version of the pioneering digital history project.
Civil War veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic, Cazenovia, New York, circa 1900.

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

Koch argues that the Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.
President Biden visits Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on April 14.
partner

The History Shaping Memorial Services For Fallen Service Members

The way we commemorate those who have made the ultimate sacrifice dates to the Civil War.
Photo of Union commanders.

The Anti-Lee

George Henry Thomas, southerner in blue.
Laundresses with Union soldiers, circa 1863.

On Juneteenth, Three Stirring Stories of How Enslaved People Gained Their Freedom

Millions of Americans gained freedom from slavery in a slow-moving wave of emancipation during the Civil War and in the months afterward.
Book cover of the Three Cornered War, featuring a southwestern desert landscape.

A Different Civil War in the Southwest

A riveting new book shows how the Civil War in the West was both strategically important and lacking in the moral contours of the broader war.

Richmond Rising

African Americans and the mobilization of the Confederate capital.

BookChat with David Silkenat, Author of Raising the White Flag

The Civil War started with a surrender, ended with a series of surrenders, and had several of its major campaigns end in surrender.
The armored gunboat USS Cairo with its crew standing on deck, 1862.

Union Gunboats Didn't Just Attack Rebel Military Sites – They Went After Civilian Property, too

A new look at detailed data about Civil War skirmishes along the Mississippi River reveals another key to the Union's victory.

The Class Politics of the Civil War

By naming a common enemy the Union Army was able to build and then steer a coalition of Americans toward the systematic destruction of slavery.

Surrender in the American Civil War

During the Civil War, surrendering was an honorable way of accepting defeat — under the right circumstances.

Prophets of War

Telegraph operators were the first to know news of the Civil War.

What the Name "Civil War" Tells Us-- and Why it Matters

Today’s battles over Confederate iconography emerge, in part, out of the failure to address the centrality of slavery to the war.
Archaeologist excavating a bone.

Civil War Battlefield 'Limb Pit' Reveals Work Of Combat Surgeons

Bones uncovered at the Manassas National Battlefield Park provide insights into surgery during the Civil War.

'What Soldiers Are for': Jersey Boys Wait for War

Essays published in a high school paper reflect the boys' efforts to prepare themselves for fighting in the Civil War.
Charles Dickens writing at his table, 1858.

Charles Dickens, America, & The Civil War

What might Charles Dickens have thought about the American Civil War and the American struggle for abolition and social reforms?

Why the Civil War West Mattered – and Still Does

The West cared very much about the Civil War.