THE CIVIL WAR ONLINE

The following magazine articles are available online to our cardholders in the History Reference Center database.

5 REBELLIOUS LONG ARMS. Civil War Times (August 2016) Vol. 55, Issue 4.

Southern arms manufacturers turned out thousands of serviceable, reliable muzzle-loading muskets to issue to Rebel troops, including the five discussed in this article.

TEMPEST AT COOL SPRING. Civil War Times (August 2016) Vol. 55, Issue 4.

Union pursuers caught up with Confederate soldiers under Jubal Early’s command along the Shenandoah River in July 1864. A bloody contest ensued.

THE SOUTH'S ACHILLES HEEL. Civil War Times (October 2016) Vol. 55, Issue 5.

How did the South’s agricultural strength become a devastating weakness? R. Douglas Hurt, head of the History Department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, tackled that question in his 2015 book Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South (UNC Press). His research is the first comprehensive look at the topic since 1965. A Civil War Times staffer interviews Hurt in this article.

THE DARK TURN. Civil War Times (October 2016) Vol. 55, Issue 5.

It has become fashionable among scholars to emphasize the "dark side" of the Civil War. Troubled by what they consider a literature gone stale with sanitized questions and topics, these historians seek to revitalize the field by examining the conflict's often disturbing underside. The “overlooked” war, they note, featured brutality, atrocities, cowardice, vicious guerrilla activity, and physical and psychological wounds that left many veterans profoundly damaged.