Famous Lincoln photo re-examined

Six years ago, amateur historian John Richter rocked the world of Civil War scholars when he downloaded a series of digital photos showing the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery on Nov. 19, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pa. In the sea of pixelated faces, Richter...

Looking for Lincoln

At the Australian embassy in Washington, DC, last month, I asked Kim Beazley if he had had the chance to indulge his fascination with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War while serving as Australia’s ambassador to the US. “The Civil War is seminal to the...

Books: Matthew Brady's Portaits

Although “Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation” is billed as a biography, it actually reads as a by-now familiar story of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, parallel in an eerie way to the communication revolution we are experiencing in this...

Mary Lincoln's Insanity

Mary Lincoln’s Insanity Case: A Documentary History does well to offer a superset of what was previously available in contemporary documentation. But author Jason Emerson does no favors to Mark Neely and R. Gerald McMurtry. He mentions their 1993 work The...

Misunderstanding the Civil War

In early July, on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, pilgrims will crowd Little Round Top and the High Water Mark of Pickett’s Charge. But venture beyond these famous shrines to battlefield valor and you’ll find quiet sites like...