Notes on the American Civil War at 150

The new Common-Place is up, with Tara Bynum on Phyllis Wheatley, Roger Ekirch on"a ripping good Irish-American tale" and Hsuan L. Hsu on Mark Twain in the court of Wu Chih Tien. The bloggers among us will be especially happy to see Kevin Levin's"Civil War Site" on his experience blogging about the war at Civil War Memory.

Mark Grimsley,"Sherman's Armies in 1864: A Study in Organizational Culture," Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, Pt. I 2 October and Pt. II 4 October, is a paper Mark gave at the May meeting of the Society for Military History.

Louis P. Masur,"The Civil War at 150," CHE, 3 October, reviews Douglas R. Egerton's Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War, Eric Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, forthcoming studies of strategy, religion, society and nationhood, and a NARA exhibit,"Discovering the Civil War." Masur argues that the war's battles are still being fought.

John Swansburg,"Civil War Road Trip," Slate, 4 October, launches a memorial to the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War with slide shows about the battles of Vicksburg and Shiloh.

Finally, have a look at and a listen to"Re-Union: A Musical Epic in Miniature." It's a fine addition to American musical theater and a worthy remembrance of the war at its 150th anniversary.