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Tag: Civil War

Students and Faculty Tour Shiloh National Military Park

On March 1, 2024, Dr. Lesley J. Gordon, along with fellow Civil War historians Dr. Susannah Ural and Dr. Timothy B. Smith, coordinated a staff ride to Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee. UA history undergraduate and graduate students, along with UA and Mississippi State Army ROTC cadets, officers, and MSU graduate students, toured the battlefield to learn about Civil War tactics, command, and enduring lessons of leadership. Staff rides and battlefield tours help students and cadets understand key concepts […]

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Dr. Gordon’s Civil War Class Tours Vicksburg NMP

On Friday March 3rd, Dr. Lesley Gordon’s Civil War class and UA graduate students visited Vicksburg National Military Park alongside Dr. Susannah Ural of the University of Southern Mississippi, USM graduate students, and UA and USM ROTC Cadets. During the tour, students heard presentations from Dr. Gordon and Dr. Ural as well as graduate students and NPS rangers. Students were able to engage firsthand with the history of the battlefield, the experiences of soldiers in a Civil War campaign, and […]

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Department Sponsors Symposium on Alabama Politics

On October 3, 2022, the Department sponsored “Rethinking Alabama Politics from the Civil War to the Present.” Over 100 students, faculty, and community members attended the day-long symposium that brought together today’s leading historians on Alabama history for a reappraisal of post-Civil-War era Alabama history through the lenses of diverse elements such as interracial relationships, immigration, Lost Cause mythology, and organized protest. Participants included Auburn University’s Dr. Jennifer Brooks and Dr. Steven Brown; Auburn University at Montgomery’s Dr. Ben Severance; […]

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Rethinking Alabama Politics from the Civil War to the Present: A History Symposium

Join the Department of History on Monday, October 3, 2022 for Rethinking Alabama Politics from the Civil War to the Present: A History Symposium. This event brings together today’s leading historians on Alabama history for a reappraisal of post-Civil-War era Alabama history. Lunch will be served for graduate students and panelists. Students should contact Brian Martin to RSVP. Camelia Room, Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library, The University of Alabama Monday, October 3, 2022 9 am – 5 pm Refreshments Available   […]

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Dr. Lesley Gordon & Students Visit Vicksburg Battlefield

Dr. Lesley Gordon took her Civil War class (HY 315) and UA History grad students on a tour of Vicksburg National Military Park this past March. They were joined by Dr. Susannah Ural and some of her students from the University of Southern Mississippi as well as UA and Southern Mississippi ROTC members. Park rangers and graduate students, such as UA History PhD students Brian Martin and Trace Brusco, co-led the tour. Undergraduate students also presented about the battle at […]

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UA Professor and Graduates Publish Volume Honoring Emeritus History Professor George C. Rable

Louisiana State University Press recently published American Discord: The Republic and Its People during the Civil War Era, an edited volume honoring the career of UA emeritus history professor George C. Rable. Edited by UA history professor Dr. Lesley J. Gordon and UA history alumni Drs. Megan Bever and Laura Mammina, the collection features essays written by thirteen of Rable’s Ph.D. students, as well as other prominent scholars, including a forward by Gary W. Gallagher. The wide-ranging collection mirrors Rable’s […]

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Rable Protégés Discuss the “Rable Method.”

Glenn David Brasher and G. Ward Hubbs, both noted protégés of Professor George Rable, recently published a piece on the “Rable Method” for the Civil War Monitor. Few scholars have produced as many groundbreaking works as Civil War historian George C. Rable. Since his retirement from teaching in 2016, a group of his former doctoral students have worked on a festschrift to honor their mentor, culminating now with the release of American Discord; The Republic and Its People in the Civil […]

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Dr. Kristopher Teters to Speak on “An Army of Liberation: How Western Union Officers Carried out and Felt about Emancipation during the Civil War”

Please join us on February 27, at Noon, to welcome Dr. Kristopher Teters for his lunch talk, “An Army of Liberation: How Western Union Officers Carried out and Felt about Emancipation during the Civil War.” Dr. Kristopher Teters earned his Ph.D. in 2012 at The University of Alabama, working with Dr. George Rable. The focus of his work is the Civil War era. His book, Practical Liberators, which came out in 2018, looks at the Union army and emancipation in the Western […]

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Matthew Hulbert Visits Department

Dr. Matthew Hulbert, assistant professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College, visited the department on Friday, February 7, to discuss his book, The Ghosts of Guerrilla Memory: How Civil War Bushwhackers Became Gunslingers in the American West (UGA 2016). Hulbert’s wide-ranging talk covered noted American characters of the period, from Billy the Kid to Jesse James, but his focus was on the irregular wartime experiences of the common person. For those on the Missouri-Kansas border guerrilla violence became normalized, while front-line fighting […]

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Dr. Matthew Hulbert to discuss “Irregular Recollections: Civil War and Guerrilla Memory in the Missouri-Kansas Borderlands” on Feb. 7

Please join us to welcome Dr. Matthew Hulbert as he discusses his current book project: “Irregular Recollections: Civil War and Guerrilla Memory in the Missouri-Kansas Borderlands.” Dr. Hulbert will speak on Friday, February 7, 2020, at Noon in the Summersell Room (251 ten Hoor). Copies of his recent publications will be available for purchase and Dr. Hulbert will gladly autograph them for you. Matthew Christopher Hulbert (Ph.D., UGA, 2015) is an Assistant Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College, where he […]

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Dr. Gordon & Students From HY 315-The Civil War Visit Vicksburg

Joshua Keil, a PhD student of Dr. Lesley Gordon, joined his mentor’s HY 315 – The Civil War course on an excursion to the Vicksburg National Military Park, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. His travel log below recounts their shared experiences. “The Key to the Past” Joshua Keil In the fall of 2019, undergraduates from Dr. Lesley Gordon’s Civil War course, as well as graduate students from The University of Alabama and students and faculty from the University of Southern Mississippi, set out […]

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Alum Adam Petty Enjoys Success After Graduation

Department alum Adam Petty recently published The Battle of the Wilderness in Myth and Memory: Reconsidering Virginia’s Most Notorious Civil War Battlefield (LSU Press, 2019). Petty’s inspiration for the work came from his first seminar paper as a student in the department’s graduate program in which he researched the 1863 Mine Run Campaign in Virginia. While conducting an environmental analysis of the campaign his attention was captured by the densely forested region of Virginia west of Fredericksburg, called the Wilderness. […]

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Dr. John David Smith to Speak Sept. 17

Join us to hear Dr. John David Smith’s lecture “The Making and Meaning of Dear Delia: The Civil War Letters of Captain Henry F. Young, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry.” Henry Young, an officer in the famed Iron Brigade, wrote 155 letters home during the Civil War, offering insights and details of military service that enable readers to witness the war through his eyes. The correspondence highlights the candid perspective of a young officer from America’s western heartland who was fiercely determined […]

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Dr. Catherine Clinton to Discuss Mental Illness During & After the Civil War

On Tuesday, March 26, 2019, at 12:00 pm, Dr. Catherine Clinton, Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas at San Antonio, will discuss her past and present academic work, including her new project on Union soldiers and mental illness during and after the Civil War. Previously, Dr. Clinton has served as President of the Southern Historical Association, and she remains on the advisory boards for Civil War History, Civil War Times, The President’s Cottage and Soldier’s Home, and […]

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Amy Murrell Taylor Visits Campus

The History Department was pleased to host Amy Murrell Taylor in November to give a talk on her new book, Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps. In her book, Taylor discusses the meaning wrapped up in the physical design and structure of the camps where former enslaved persons fleeing the Confederacy were housed. When these spaces disappeared when the war ended, it left a major mark on the African-American community as they sought equality and agency. […]

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