Clik here to view.
Tough Broads of the Civil War
I’ve said it before: If you hang out in Popular History Land, or even Book World these days, it’s impossible to ignore the American Civil War and its sesquicentennial. Civil War references are...
View ArticleA lagniappe
Dear Readers: I’m guest-blogging today at Karen Elliot’s Blog: Finding Your Way Through the Civil War Visit. Say hi. Sit a spell.
View ArticleClik here to view.
The First Memorial Day
My Own True Love and I just got home from a Memorial Day service in Grant Park. It was held at the foot of a statue commemorating General John A.Logan. Before today, Logan on horseback was just...
View ArticleHistory, Myth, and the Gettysburg Address
Recently I’ve been working on a piece about the Gettysburg Address.* As always, I’ve done more research than required,** wandered down some interesting by-ways that were not relevant to the project,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
History on Display: The Gettysburg Cyclorama
Cycloramas were the I-Max of the nineteenth century. Viewers stood in the center of a specially constructed auditorium, surrounded by a huge cylindrical oil painting of an exciting historic event or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Was Prof. Bhaer A 48-er?
Unlike most of the women I know who grew up reading Little Women, I was never indignant that Jo March married Professor Bhaer instead of the adolescent golden boy, Laurie. That kiss in the rain under...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mercy Street (aka A Moment of Blatant Self-Promotion)
Just so you know, this is what I spent the last ten weeks doing: It’s the companion volume to a new PBS historical drama about nurses in the Civil War. The PBS series uses a real Civil War hospital as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Copperheads
When we write the history of national conflicts, we tend to assume that “our” side stood united in monolithic opposition to “them”. It’s a simple and enjoyable version of history, but it simply isn’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Our Army Nurses”
Nurses and doctors at Fredericksburg after the Battle of the Wilderness, 1864 About a million years ago, I wrote a study guide to Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage for a reference book called...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From The Archives: Tough Broads of the Civil War
Just to prove that I’ve been thinking about nurses and other women who played a role in the American Civil War for a while now, here’s a post that first appeared in the Margins in 2011: I’ve said it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clara Barton, Act II: Finding the Missing
[WARNING: For the next few weeks, it’s going to be all Civil War all the time here at the Margins as we lead up to February 16, when Little Brown releases Heroines of Mercy Street into the world. I’ll...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clara Barton, Act III: The American Red Cross
[WARNING: For the next few weeks, it’s going to be all Civil War all the time here at the Margins as we lead up to February 16, when Little Brown releases Heroines of Mercy Street into the world. I’ll...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mercy Street and M*A*S*H
A BIT OF NEWS: On Monday, January 25, from 4 to 5 PM Eastern Standard Time, I’m going to be the guest host at #LitChat, a real time Twitter chat that brings authors and book lovers to talk about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Did Civil War nurses have uniforms?
A Brief Commercial: I will be speaking about Civil War nurses at the Lyceum in Alexandria, Virginia on Thursday, February 4. (Here’s the link to the details–please note the snow date. I’m hoping...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Frank Stringfellow–Confederate Spy
In the PBS series Mercy Street, Frank Stringfellow is a spy and assassin. A cold-blooded killer with a hint of the psychopath, he seems to enjoy the violence that the war has unleashed. (Or at least...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Amy Morris Bradley: Civil War Shin-kicker
I must admit to a sneaking fondness for the Civil War nurses who found a way to work outside Dorothea Dix’s nursing corps. Some of them, like Cornelia Hancock, were too young and/or too pretty to meet...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy
Nursing wasn’t the only role that women played in the American Civil War. Women on both sides of the conflict organized soldier’s aid societies, effectively transforming homes, schools and churches...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Confederate Nurses, Pt 1
Both the television show Mercy Street, and Heroines of Mercy Street* look at Civil War nurses through the lens of a single Union hospital, Mansion House Hospital in the occupied city of Alexandria,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Confederate Nurses, Part 2
Union Secretary of State Stewart Cameron accepted Dorothea Dix‘s offer to organize an army of nurses without taking the time to define what her position would entail or how she would fit into a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dorothea Dix Volunteers
“Dragon” Dix was a shadowy and controversial figure in the opening scenes of the PBS series, Mercy Street. The historical Miss Dix was just as controversial. For those of you who don’t have the...
View Article
