Update on our Website Upgrade · Symposium Update
10 Questions ... with Dwight Hughes · News & Notes
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I have to admit: the last week has been disconcerting for me. I’m usually on the Emerging Civil War website a half a dozen times over the course of the day, reading posts, scheduling content, checking visitation, and conducting other editorial duties. But over the past week, under the leadership of co-managing editor Dan Davis, we’ve been working behind the scenes to migrate to a new server, which means we’ve not been able to post new material to the site.
It’s been hard to stay “hands-off”!
As you might imagine, ECW is an important part of my day—and I know, for many of you, it’s an important part of your day, as well. If you’re like me, this week of quiet time has thrown off my routine. With any luck, though, you’ve taken the time to get caught up on posts you didn’t have the chance to read when they first went up, or you’ve delved deeper into our archives. After all, we have six and a half years of great content stacked up there in cyberspace. One of our main reasons for migrating to the new site is that it will enable us to make our archives more accessible to our readers. Watch for those improvements in the months to come!
Fortunately, the site will be back up shortly, and life can go back to business as usual. We can all work ECW back into our routines. I hope, too, that you’ll take the time to share the new-and-improved ECW with friends and colleagues who share an interest in the Civil War. We really do rely on you, our faithful readers, to spread the gospel of ECW so that, in turn, we can spread the gospel of the Civil War. It is America’s great story—and we’re excited to make these technological improvements so that we can share that story well into the future.
Thanks for your patience!
-- Chris Mackowski
Editor-in-Chief
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5th Annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge: UPDATE
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by Dan Welch, symposium co-chair
We are working very hard on the Fifth Annual Emerging Civil War Symposium taking place this August. Our speakers are being featured weekly on the blog in our Symposium Spotlight series on Wednesday mornings, giving us a preview of their presentations.
Arriving to our doorstep over the past week have been some really great "goodies" that all attendees will be receiving, and we can't wait to share them with you. Also going on behind the scenes for the Symposium is our collection of some amazing raffle prizes and what is shaping up to be a great used book sale on site. We have secured a number of authors that will also be signing their works during the Symposium.
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Behind the Scenes:
Upgrading ECW's Website
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by Daniel T. Davis, ECW's co-managing editor
Through the course of January, Emerging Civil War has been working to migrate our free-standing site to its own server. The motivation for this move was due in part to providing a better user experience. Placing the site on the new server will improve our existing author capabilities. It will also allow ECW to provide additional amenities for our readers.
Our staff has been working diligently on podcasts that we’ll offer to visitors in the coming months—a service we’ve been unable to offer under our current arrangement. Another reason for the move is to make the archives more accessible to our readers. We have years of great material stored on the existing site but needed a more user-friendly way to make it available. Readers are familiar with purchasing Symposium tickets through our PayPal link. One of the upgrades is to expand our sales ability beyond PayPal and allow visitors to purchase items directly through the site. Additionally, while we plan to update the layout of the site, we’ll make sure it continues to be a user-friendly reading experience.
The site will be online again in early February. In the coming months, we will begin to deploy these and other capabilities. As always, our authors are hard at work on content for 2018. We thank you for our continued patience throughout this and all of our endeavors. We could not do it without the support of our readers.
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10 Questions . . .
with Dwight Hughes
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Dwight Hughes is the author of C.S.S. Shenandoah: A Confederate Biography
and an expert on Civil War naval operations. You can read his full bio
here
.
You had a whole other life before becoming a Civil War historian. Tell us a little about that.
I was never quite sure how an Iowa boy became enamored of ships and the sea, perhaps from watching
Victory at Sea
and the
Buccaneers
on B&W tube TV. Those interests, along with high school Army ROTC, led to the Naval Academy and twenty years as a Navy surface warfare officer on most of the world’s oceans in ships ranging from destroyer to aircraft carrier and with river forces in Vietnam. We visited many wonderful places from one end of the globe to the other. It wasn’t all fun, but was a real adventure and I wouldn’t have missed it. A second career as a software engineer followed, but now I thankfully pursue true loves. Can’t drive ships anymore, but can write about them.
What made you decide to reinvent yourself to become a Civil War historian? How did you go about doing that?
It was more a long transition than a reinvention, having always loved and read history, particularly naval and military. In addition to required math, science, and engineering (at which I did not excel), I majored in history and government. Later, I taught Naval ROTC at the University of Rochester while earning an MA in Poly Sci, which was mostly history. Somewhere along the line, I realized a latent hankering, and apparently some ability, to write. I discovered (or rediscovered) a fascination for the Civil War when Judi and I moved to beautiful Virginia in 1985. So, put them together—Civil War and Navy—and here we are. Started the
Shenandoah
book in the 90’s as a hobby while still working, and now am in with a great Emerging Civil War group. Speaking and writing is a way to keep serving, to advance a crucial mission for historical literacy, and it’s fun. See
http://civilwarnavyhistory.com/
As a fan of the navy, you don't have the typical kinds of battlefields to visit that army fans can go to. What's that like?
Actually, we have wonderful harbor, coast, and river battlefields: Hampton Roads, Charleston, Mobile, New Orleans, etc. I grew up on the Missouri River, not far from critical sites on the Mississippi. History offers few examples other than the Civil War and Vietnam of extensive operations on inland shallow waters involving specialized classes of war vessels manned by naval personnel. You look historically from the water back at the land. Same events with a different and enlightening perspective. Then there is the sea. See next question.
Your first book was about the CSS
Shenandoah
. Were you able to visit any sites associated with the
Shenandoah
's story?
No dry sites, unfortunately. They are a bit hard to get to, from Glasgow to Liverpool, to Melbourne, Pohnpei, and the Bering Sea. But mostly I saw lots of the same seas and performed much the same ship-driving tasks. Technology has advanced, but basic concepts, forms, and functions of ships have been constant for millennia. The sea has changed not at all. Impersonal waters make personal connections among those who ride them even when separated in time.
What are you working on next?
A volume for the Emerging Civil War Series tentatively titled
With Mutual Fierceness: The Battle of Hampton Roads
. It will be a fresh look for Civil War fans at the revolutionary clash between the ironclads USS
Monitor
and CSS
Virginia
(ex USS
Merrimack
) in March 1862. Besides being a great story, the encounter had significant tactical and strategic implications for the land war.
Lightning Round (short answers):
Most overrated person of the Civil War?
I can’t think of a popularly overrated naval person, so will pick a ship: USS
Monitor
as a warship design.
Favorite Trans-Mississippi site?
The Pacific island of Pohnpei where the Rebels of
Shenandoah
enjoyed a tropical holiday, sank four Yankee whalers, and encountered an exotic warrior society while guns fell silent at Appomattox. How’s that for trans-Mississippi?
Favorite regiment?
Again, will pick an obvious navy equivalent: CSS
Shenandoah
.
What is the one Civil War book you think is essential?
One of the greatest and most neglected war classics is by the captain of the CSS
Alabama
: Raphael Semmes’s
Memoirs of Service Afloat
. Even land lubbers would like it.
What's one question about the Civil War no one has ever asked you but you wish they would?
That’s a hard one. Whether asked or not, the question I generally try to answer is: Why and how are naval matters critical—and not just peripheral—to the Civil War? Why should we pay attention to them?
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News & Notes
Sarah Kay Bierle is looking forward to attending celebratory events at Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands, California, around the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's 209th birthday. On February 10th, she will be participating in living history at the Shrine's open house, sharing about civilian experiences during the Civil War. On February 12th, she will attend the Watchorn Society Dinner, enjoying a lecture by historian Dr. Manisha Sinha about Lincoln and abolition. For more information about Lincoln Memorial Shrine, check-out
this blog post.
For the equestrian-minded among you, Sarah’s
Gazette665, her history newsletter, featured a special issue about Civil War horses earlier this month. You can check that out
here.
Steve Davis has an article in the April 2018 issue of
Civil War Times. “No Hope of Success” recounts John Bell Hood’s “lopsided victory against William T. Sherman at a small Georgia church”—the May 25, 1864, battle of New Hope Church.
Dave Powell still has a few seats left for his annual two-day tour of Chickamauga later this spring. The tour, which also features NPS historian Jim Ogden, will run March 9 and 10 and will cover Chickamauga and Resaca. The cost is $45 if you register by Feb. 1 and $50 afterwards. For more details, check out
this post from Dave.
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