George Randolph Wood filled several journal books with personal remembrances of life in nineteenth-century Hampton, Virginia; particularly of his experiences aboard river and canal boats transporting supplies for Confederate troops along the James River during the Civil War. Wood wrote about his experience because he thought it might interest his family, but his writing is of interest to a more general audience because of the scarcity of information about those who worked on river boats and supply barges during the war. In his later life, Wood was a druggist by profession and his writing lacks the sentimentality often found in reminiscences, and his terse, non-flowery style is interspersed with wit and honest observations of wartime spent on the James River, its tributaries, and the canal above Richmond. The Wood family evacuated Hampton and initially found sanctuary in City Point. They tramped over the corpse-strewn Malvern Hill battlefield. They lived in Richmond where Wood's oldest brother, Robert, was imprisoned as a Union sympathizer. And they found accommodations in a crowded mansion on the bank of the Appomattox River before returning through the lines to the ruins of Hampton. Wood watched artillery shells descend in his direction; attended scores of theatrical performances in Richmond; visited encampments of Hampton boys; twice saw Robert E. Lee; went hungry, yet sampled caviar; was detained at Fort Monroe; helped to build a house--and may have even cast a vote for Abraham Lincoln (in a mock presidential election). Historian Scott Nelson has written an illuminating essay on how Wood captures the dilemma of people living along the James River trying to survive between the battle lines of Union and Confederate troops, and how this account provides new and valuable information for scholars and students alike. Published in association with the Port Hampton History Foundation for the Library at the Mariners' Museum

From its beginning as a Tidewater town in the 1600s, Hampton, Virginia, has weathered many storms, including the disastrous effects of the Civil War and the difficulties of Reconstruction. The city's picturesque harbors have witnessed the rise of a thriving seafood industry, the growth of educational opportunity and the plight of Hampton's African American community. Author Alice Erickson uses her own family, the Hickman family, as a vehicle to unite compelling vignettes of Hampton's most storied era. Discover the intricacies of the Virginia secession, the turmoil of Federal occupation and the revitalization of Hampton out of the ashes of conflict. Follow along Erickson's tragic and adventurous story, whose ending has yet to be written.

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to Publish The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor. Table of Contents for this issue, Volume One, Number Two: volume 1, number 2 June 2011 Table of Contents Articles a. kristen foster "We Are Men!": Frederick Douglass and the Fault Lines of Gendered Citizenship kathryn s. meier "No Place for the Sick": Nature's War on Civil War Soldier Mental and Physical Health in the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley Campaigns brandi c. brimmer "Her Claim for Pension Is Lawful and Just": Representing Black Union Widows in Late-Nineteenth Century North Carolina Review Essay frank towers Partisans, New History, and Modernization: The Historiography of the Civil War's Causes, 1861–2011 Book Reviews Books Received Professional Notes daniel e. sutherland The Seven O'Clock Lecture Notes on Contributors The Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

Civil War studies normally focus on military battles, campaigns, generals and politicians, with the common Confederate soldiers and Southern civilians receiving only token mention. Using personal accounts from more than two hundred forty soldiers, farmers, clerks, nurses, sailors, farm girls, merchants, surgeons, chaplains and wives, author Jeff Toalson has created a compilation that is remarkable in its simplicity and stunning in its scope. These soldiers and civilians wrote remarkable letters and kept astonishing diaries and journals. They discuss disease, slavery, inflation, religion, desertion, blockade running, and their never-ending hope that the war would end before their loved ones died. A major portion of these documents were unpublished and were made available by the Brewer Library of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. With this, his third significant contribution to Civil War literature, Jeff Toalson joins the select company of Thomas W. Cutrer and Bell I. Wiley as historians who have devoted their body of work to preserving the voices of common Confederate soldiers and civilians.

“A comprehensive study of the Civil War’s first major battle . . . well leavened with strategic and political context” (Robert E. L. Krick, author of Staff Officers in Gray). Battle of Big Bethel is the first full-length treatment of the small but consequential June 1861 Virginia battle that reshaped perceptions about what lay in store for the divided nation. The successful Confederate defense reinforced the belief most Southerners held that their martial invincibility and protection of home and hearth were divinely inspired. After initial disbelief and shame, the defeat hardened Northern resolution to preserve their sacred Union. The notion began to take hold that, contrary to popular belief, the war would be difficult and protracted—a belief that was cemented in reality the following month on the plains of Manassas. Years in the making, Battle of Big Bethel relies upon letters, diaries, newspapers, reminiscences, official records, and period images—some used for the first time. The authors detail the events leading up to the encounter, survey the personalities as well as the contributions of the participants, set forth a nuanced description of the confusion-ridden field of battle, and elaborate upon its consequences. Here, finally, the story of Big Bethel is colorfully and compellingly brought to life through the words and deeds of a fascinating array of soldiers, civilians, contraband slaves, and politicians whose lives intersected on that fateful day in the early summer of 1861. “The authors do a wonderful job of describing the motivations and mindsets of both the U.S. and Confederate soldiers at the outset of the conflict and handle slavery very effectively throughout.” —Edward L. Ayers, author of The Thin Light of

Using letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers to take us inside the minds of Civil War soldiers—black and white, Northern and Southern—as they fought and marched across a divided country, this unprecedented account is “an essential contribution to our understanding of slavery and the Civil War" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). In this unprecedented account, Chandra Manning With stunning poise and narrative verve, Manning explores how the Union and Confederate soldiers came to identify slavery as the central issue of the war and what that meant for a tumultuous nation. This is a brilliant and eye-opening debut and an invaluable addition to our understanding of the Civil War as it has never been rendered before.

From the author of What This Cruel War Was Over, a vivid portrait of the Union army’s escaped-slave refugee camps and how they shaped the course of emancipation and citizenship in the United States. Chandra Manning casts in a wholly original light what it was like to escape slavery, how emancipation happened, and how citizenship in the United States was transformed. This reshaping of hard structures of power would matter not only for slaves turned citizens, but for all Americans. Integrating a wealth of new findings, this vivid portrait of the Union army’s escaped-slave refugee camps shows how they shaped the course of emancipation and citizenship in the United States. Drawing on records of the Union and Confederate armies, the letters and diaries of soldiers, transcribed testimonies of former slaves, and more, Manning allows us to accompany the black men, women, and children who sought out the Union army in hopes of achieving autonomy for themselves and their communities. It also raised, for the first time, humanitarian questions about refugees in wartime and legal questions about civil and military authority with which we still wrestle, as well as redefined American citizenship, to the benefit, but also to the lasting cost of, African Americans.