The Battle Flags of Minnesota

All of Minnesota's Civil War units, with the exception of the 1st Minnesota Infantry, served in either the Western Theater and/or in the trans-Mississippi. The Minnesota Historical Society is to be commended for creating a website that features photographs of surviving battle flags, short histories of each regiment and battery, and artifacts associated with different units. Conservation efforts are highlighted with a short three minute video. Check it out!

Upcoming Presentation

This Thursday, I'll be speaking to the members and guests of the Civil War Roundtable of Central Louisiana on "A Constant School of Excitement: Albert C. Ellithorpe and the Border War." I'm looking forward to my trek into Louisiana and the opportunity to share information about the trans-Mississippi war to an interested audience!

How Important Was the Trans-Mississippi?

Today,  I picked up the most recent issue of Civil War Times magazine from a Barnes & Noble store. As I've been arguing for several years, the trans-Mississippi theater was more significant than traditionally believed.

One of the "traditionalists" is the esteemed Civil War historian, Dr. Gary W. Gallagher, the Director of the John Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. Author and editor of many books and a popular professor at The Great Courses Company, Dr. Gallagher "dismisses recent scholarship on the Civil War West and is most derisive of scholars working on histories of the Southwestern theater and the Pacific coast, arguing that the military, political, and social histories of these areas between 1861 and 1865 are irrelevant to Civil War history," according to Dr. Megan Kate Nelson. Her abridged column, "The Civil War West Mattered" is in the hot-off-the-press December 2017 issue of Civil War Times magazine. Dr. Nelson is best known for her well-received book, Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War but her latest, Path of the Dead Man: How the West was Won--and Lost--during the American Civil War, will be published in 2019. To read her unabridged column, go to the History Net website, which also has links to Dr. Gallagher's recent pieces relating to the West.