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| Journal of the Civil War Era | |
|---|---|
| Title | Journal of the Civil War Era |
| Discipline | History |
| Abbreviation | JCWE |
| Publisher | [Unknown — do not link] |
| Country | United States |
| History | 2011–present |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
Journal of the Civil War Era is a peer-reviewed scholarly periodical dedicated to the study of the American Civil War era and the antebellum, wartime, and Reconstruction periods. The journal publishes research that connects events and figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Frederick Douglass to broader developments involving Congressional Reconstruction, Emancipation Proclamation, Compromise of 1850, Kansas–Nebraska Act, and Dred Scott v. Sandford. Articles regularly engage with primary actors and institutions like William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, and Thaddeus Stevens, situating them within the politics of Missouri Compromise, Homestead Act, Confederate States of America, Union (American Civil War), and regional studies such as Gettysburg and Charleston, South Carolina.
The journal was established in the early 2010s during a period of renewed historiographical interest that invoked debates around figures and events including John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Andrew Johnson, Salmon P. Chase, Stephen A. Douglas, Winfield Scott, Charles Sumner, and Alexander H. Stephens. Founders aimed to provide a venue for research on contested topics such as Reconstruction Acts, Black Codes, Sharecropping, Fort Sumter, First Battle of Bull Run, and the legacy of slavery in places like Richmond, Virginia and New Orleans. The inception responded to methodological shifts visible in works about Thaddeus Stevens, Mary Chesnut, William Lloyd Garrison, and comparative studies linking the era to international events like the Crimean War and the Mexican–American War.
Coverage spans political, social, military, cultural, and legal dimensions, engaging with leaders and episodes including Congress of the Confederate States, Ex parte Milligan, Port Royal Experiment, Sherman's March to the Sea, Antietam, Vicksburg Campaign, and Appomattox Court House. The journal publishes essays that reinterpret the roles of activists and intellectuals such as Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Alexis de Tocqueville (in reception), and historians like Eric Foner, James M. McPherson, and Drew Gilpin Faust via historiographical debates. Comparative and transnational work links the era to revolutions and reforms in Haiti, Brazil, Britain, and France, and to military innovations exemplified by Ironclad warship actions like USS Monitor versus CSS Virginia.
The editorial board comprises scholars affiliated with institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of Chicago. Board members often include specialists on figures like Salmon P. Chase, George B. McClellan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Jefferson Davis advisors, and Reconstruction-era lawmakers such as Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce. Submissions undergo double-blind peer review overseen by editors who solicit reports from experts on topics ranging from battlefield analysis of Gettysburg Campaign to legal studies of Reconstruction Amendments and social histories of Antebellum South and urban centers like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
Published quarterly, each issue typically includes multiple research articles, book reviews, and sometimes archival notes that draw on manuscript collections from repositories such as the Library of Congress, National Archives, Sheridan Center, Southern Historical Collection, and university special collections at Baylor University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The journal issues thematic clusters or special sections devoted to topics like the historiography of Reconstruction, reinterpretations of the Civil Rights Movement origins, archives of correspondences from figures like Mary Todd Lincoln and George Meade, and digital humanities projects mapping campaigns such as the Peninsula Campaign.
The journal is indexed in major humanities and social science databases and directories that catalog periodicals alongside entries for prominent journals and works involving Civil War Society scholarship, compilations on Battle of Antietam, and bibliographies tied to authors like Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton. Indexing facilitates discoverability for researchers tracing citations to primary documents, monographs on Reconstruction Amendments, and comparative essays on figures including Charles Francis Adams and William H. Seward.
Scholars have cited the journal in debates over interpretations advanced by historians such as Eric Foner, Sean Wilentz, Gordon Wood, James Oakes, and Ira Berlin, and in public history projects at sites like Appomattox Court House National Historical Park and Manassas National Battlefield Park. Its contributions have informed museum exhibitions, curriculum development at institutions including West Point and United States Military Academy, and documentary projects referencing archival materials tied to Lincoln's assassination and Reconstruction-era politics featuring names like Lewis Powell and David Farragut.
Notable contributions have addressed contentious episodes and figures such as Emancipation Proclamation consequences, the politics of Presidential Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson, battlefield decision-making at Chancellorsville, the social history of enslaved communities in Charleston, and biographical reassessments of leaders like Ambrose Burnside and George Meade. Special issues have assembled work on topics including the centennial and sesquicentennial commemorations of Gettysburg Address anniversaries, transatlantic perceptions involving British abolitionism, and archival discoveries connected to plantation records, soldiers' letters, and municipal archives in cities like Savannah, Georgia and Alexandria, Virginia.
Category:History journals Category:American Civil War studies