Contributed by Shelby R. Shrader One of the greatest challenges for Union or Confederate forces during the Civil War was moving massive armies and all of the supplies necessary to keep those commands ... Continue Reading Artifact of the Quarter |…
Publication of Note | December 2017 Edward L. Ayers, “The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America”
Edward L. Ayers, “The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America” (New York: Norton, 2017). $35 hardcover, www.wwnorton.com. Fourteen years ago one of our nation’s ... Continue Reading Publication of Note | December…
Publication of Note | September 2017 “The Civil War Memoirs of a Virginia Cavalryman”
Thomas P. Nanzig, ed., “The Civil War Memoirs of a Virginia Cavalryman” (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016). $24.95 softcover, www.uapress.ua.edu First released in 2007, this paperback ... Continue Reading Publication of Note | September…
Artifact of the Quarter | September 2017 Spencer Repeating Rifle
Contributed by Shelby R. Shrader Invented by Christopher M. Spencer, the Spencer rifle was unlike any other firearm—save the Henry—used during the Civil War. With a magazine located in the rifle’s ... Continue Reading Artifact of the Quarter |…
Publication of Note | March 2017 Brandon H. Beck's Winchester’s Three Battles: A Civil War Driving Tour Through Virginia’s Most War-Torn Town
Brandon H. Beck, "Winchester’s Three Battles: A Civil War Driving Tour Through Virginia’s Most War-Torn Town," Winchester, VA: Angle Valley Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-0-9711950-6-6. $21.95 The site of ... Continue Reading Publication of Note | March…
CWI to Commemorate 153rd Anniversary of the Battle of Cool Spring
On Saturday, July 15, CWI will offer a series of programs at Shenandoah University’s River Campus at Cool Spring Battlefield, commemorating the largest and costliest engagement fought in Clarke ... Continue Reading CWI to Commemorate 153rd Anniversary…
The McCormick Civil War Institute Needs Your Help!
CWI has an ambitious agenda, but we need your help to realize our goals and make CWI one of the premier institutions for studying and learning about the Civil War era. While some of the events ... Continue Reading The McCormick Civil War Institute…
Artifact of the Quarter | March 2017 Can it Stop a Bullet?: Body Armor in the Civil War
While the notion of our armed forces wearing some form of body armor to protect them from bullets is a common thought today, it was a revolutionary one during the Civil War. This early form of a ... Continue Reading Artifact of the Quarter |…