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Topic Authors Wanted

Our historians will peer review all topics.

The Essential Civil War Curriculum is a website in which Civil War scholars provide Topic content. For each topic there is an essay of from 5-15 pages and a recommended single book listed under if you can read only one book. Additional resources on the topic are listed under; books, organizations, web resources, other sources and scholars.

If you are a Civil War scholar and would like to become a Topic Author for the Essential Civil War Curriculum please contact us at essentialcivilwarcurriculum@hotmail.com or use the Contact Us function on the main navigation bar on the website.

The site content is subject to rigorous quality control with all essays and resources peer reviewed by a member of our Board of Historians who are today's foremost Civil War scholars.

See About This Site on the home page navigation bar for more information about our Board of Historians who are today's foremost Civil War scholars.

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New Topics for May 2013

Topics published in May 2013:

Christopher Childers, Popular Sovereignty

Lance J. Herdegen, The Iron Brigade

Matthew Mason, The Missouri Compromise of 1820

Debra L. McArthur, The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854

Daniel F. O'Connell, The Bermuda Hundred Campaign

Michael A. Morrison, The Mexican American War

Which Topics Are Completed?

Not all Topics are completed.

Please see the Printer Friendly List of Topics on the home page to understand which topics have been completed. All other topics are available for qualified Civil War scholars to author.

Our  Board of Historians have completed their Topics as an example and to set a standard. Over the course of the Civil War sesquicentennial we expect that other Civil War scholars will choose to make a contribution to the Essential Civil War Curriculum one of their sesquicentennial projects and help us populate it completely by the end of the sesquicentennial.

When you revisit the site you can see a list of topics completed by month in the News & Articles box on the home page to determine what is new since your last visit.

April 12, 2011 Essential Civil War Curriculum Launched

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 The Virginia Center for Civil War Studies has launched The Essential Civil War Curriculum

 BLACKSBURG, Virginia (April 12, 2011) The Essential Civil War Curriculum, a Sesquicentennial Project of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and the History Department of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) was launched today under the URL http://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/

 The Essential Civil War Curriculum is a website that contains a definitive list of Civil War topics and related content that public and academic audiences wishing for a broad understanding of the Civil War should study, housed at the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. For the average person interested in the Civil War the challenge today is that there is too much information. Google any Civil War topic on the internet and the reader will be presented with thousands of hits. Whether the information is accurate, whether it’s worth looking at, whether the reader is looking for the right information, is not answered. What do those interested in the Civil War need to know to increase their knowledge and understanding of this important event in American history?  The Essential Civil War Curriculum, overseen by professional Civil War historians, guides the reader to the important topics and sources that every student of the Civil War, amateur or professional, needs to understand.

 The Essential Curriculum is owned by the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and is sponsored by Professor William C Davis and Dr. James I. Robertson Jr. They are working with Mr. Laurie Woodruff who conceived, financed and manages and edits the website and the Essential Civil War Curriculum.  A Board of Historians composed of the country’s most eminent Civil War scholars individually and collectively approves all scholars wishing to contribute to the website and all postings and content produced from contributors through the wiki model under which the Essential Civil War Curriculum is managed.

 The Center’s mission is to be “a formal entity for studying and sharing knowledge” about the Civil War, and in particular to “target both academic and public audiences." The Essential Civil War Curriculum has been designed to achieve these objectives and therefore will appeal to young and old; the academic scholar, amateur historian, teacher and student. The website’s content is produced under a wiki model. By invitation from the sponsors, individual scholars can contribute by populating the topics. A member of the Board of Historians will review and approve all contributions and the website’s sponsors will have final say on whether any contributed content is actually posted on the site, thereby ensuring the quality of the information. 

 Eventually the website will house information on over 400 topics. We have launched the website with only a handful of topics completed, by members of our Board of Historians, to encourage other scholars to participate in the process and we expect the content to grow rapidly and steadily. If readers do not find what they are looking for initially, we encourage them to keep coming back and meanwhile to browse what has been published.

 Our Cause: “Increasing interest in and knowledge of the American Civil War during the Sesquicentennial”

 Contact:

Laurie Woodruff

Executive Director and Editor  Essential Civil War Curriculum

essentialcivilwarcurriculum@hotmail.com

New Topics for April 2013

Topics published in April 2013:

Wiley Sword, Eyewitness to the Apocalypse: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864

Roberta Baxter, The Home Front: North and South

New Topics for March 2013

Topics published in March 2013:

Evan Carton, John Brown's Raid

Bonnie Dorwart, Civil War Medicine

Maury Klein, Edward Porter Alexander

 

New Topics for February 2013

Topics published in February 2013:

 Daniel F. O'Connell, Letters Not Written in Blood: The Tullahoma Campaign

Michael A. Martorelli, Civil War Artillery

 

 

New Topics for January 2013

Topics published in January 2013:

 Christian Andros, Winfield Scott Hancock

 

 

New Topics for December 2012

Topics published in November 2012:

Orville Vernon Burton & Lewie Reece, Abraham Lincoln

Jack C. Waugh, Introduction Twenty Good Reasons to Study the Civil War (See Summary Books and Resources tab)

John C. Waugh, Re-Electing Lincoln: The Election of 1864

Alan C. Aimone, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies

Julie L. Holcomb, The Abolitionist Movement

Dr. Bonnie Brice Dorwart, Civil War Hospitals

Jean H. Baker, James Buchanan

 

 

 

New Topics for November 2012

Topics published in November 2012:

James A. Morgan III, The Battle of Ball's Bluff

Gordon C. Rhea, The North Anna Campaign

James K. Bryant II, Ph.D., Chancellorsville

 Dr. Bonnie Brice Dorwart, Disease in the Civil War

 

 

 

New Topics for October 2012

Topics published in October 2012:

Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh,  Antebellum Military Education of Civil War Leaders

John C. Waugh, The Compromise of 1850

 

 

New Topics for September 2012

Topics published in September 2012:

Earl B. McElfresh, Maps and the Civil War 

Kenneth W. Noe, The Battle of Perryville and the Kentucky Campaign

J. Tracy Power, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia

 

New Topics for August 2012

Topics published in August 2012:

James Marten, Union and Confederate Veterans

Angela Esco Elder, Civil War Widows

Gordon C. Rhea, The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse

David K. Thomson, Oliver Otis Howard

Mark Grimsley, The Campaign and Battle of Antietam

 

 

 

New Topics for July 2012

Topics published in July 2012:

Jacqueline G. Campbell, Gender & The Civil War

Richard G. Williams, Jr., The Stonewall Brigade

Kendall D. Gott, Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign

Paul G. Ashdown & Edward Caudill, Sherman's March to the Sea

James Marten, Children in the Civil War

 

 

 

 

New Topics for June 2012

Topics published in June 2012:

Christopher J. Einolf, George H. Thomas

Matthew C. Hulbert, William "Bloody Bill" Anderson

Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas

 

 

 

New Topics for May 2012

Topics published in May 2012:

Brian K. Burton, The Seven Days Battles

Marc Wortman Ph.D., Atlanta in the Civil War

Thomas J. Craughwell, The Irish Brigade

Kathleen L. Gorman, Civil War Pensions

Roger Pickenpaugh, Prisoner Exchange and Parole

John M. Sacher, Conscription

 

 

New Topics for April 2012

Topics published in April 2012:

Roger Pickenpaugh, Confederate Prisons

Dr. Mark A. Weitz, Desertion, Cowardice and Punishment

Brian Craig Miller Ph.D., John Bell Hood

 

New Topics for March 2012

Topics published in March 2012:

Steven Bernstein, Between North and South: Kentucky in the Civil War 1861-1862

Jonathan A. Noyalas, Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign

New Topics for February 2012

Topics published in February 2012:

Roger Pickenpaugh, Union Prisons

Frank J. Williams, Habeas Corpus

Gordon C. Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness

Judith Lee Hallock, Ph.D., Braxton Bragg

Timothy B. Smith, The Battle of Shiloh

New Topics for December 2011

Topics published in December 2011:

Peter Wallenstein, The Dred Scott Case

Jack H. Lepa, The Battle of Cedar Creek

Daniel F. O'Connell, Union and Confederate Engineer Operations in the Civil War

 

New Topics for October 2011

Topics published in October 2011:

Richard G. Williams, Jr., A Great Deal of Good: The Work and Impact of Chaplains During the American Civil War

Burrus M. Carnahan, The "Lieber Code" and the Law of War in the Civil War

Joan E. Cashin, Varina Howell Davis

 

New Topics for July 2011

Topics published in July 2011:

Edward Steers, Jr., The Lincoln Assassination

New Topics for March 2011

Topics published in March 2011:

Donald J. Stoker, Civil War Strategy 1861-1865

Louis P. Masur, The Emancipation Proclamation

New Topics for April 2011

Topics published in April 2011:

Lesley J. Gordon, George E. Pickett

New Topics for February 2011

Topics published in February 2011:

George C. Rable, Religion in the Civil War

Lawrence Lee Hewitt, David Glasgow Farragut

Lawrence Lee Hewitt, Port Hudson, Louisiana

New Topics for January 2011

Topics published in January 2011:

David Goldfield, How the Civil War Created a Nation

New Topics for December 2010

Topics published in December 2010:

James I. Robertson Jr., A Name for the American Struggle of the 1860's

William C. Davis, Sesquicentennial: A Retrospective on the Civil War

New Topics October 2010

Topics published in October 2010:

Harold Holzer, The Words of Lincoln

John M. Coski, The Confederate Flag

James I. Robertson, Jr., "Stonewall" Jackson: Christian Soldier

New Topic September 2010

Topic published in September 2010:

Frank J. Williams, Civil Liberties During the Civil War

New Topics August 2010

Topics published in August 2010:

Jared Peatman, The Gettysburg Address

George C. Rable, Confederate Government

Howard Jones, Union and Confederate Diplomacy During the Civil War

New Topics for May 2010

Topic published in May 2010:

John F. Marszalek, William Tecumseh Sherman

New Topics for March 2010

Topics published in March 2010:

William C. Davis, John C. Breckinridge