2025 Spring/Summer university press catalog offerings

Following up on my earlier comments, I perused the recently released Spring/Summer '25 university press catalogs to see if things are on the upswing since the nadir of sorts that was last fall.

As expected, the top-tier giants (in terms of matching quantity with quality) do not disappoint.

LSU:
• Hundreds of Little Wars: Community, Conflict, and the Real Civil War ed. by Schieffler & Stith.
• Sisterhood of the Lost Cause: Confederate Widows in the New South by Jennifer Gross.
• The Consequences of Confederate Citizenship: The Civil War Correspondence of Alabama's Pickens Family ed. by Henry McKiven.
• Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861–1865 by Damien Shiels.
• Late to the Fight: Union Soldier Combat Performance from the Wilderness to the Fall of Petersburg by Alexandre Caillot.

UNC:
• The Sixth Wisconsin and the Long Civil War: The Biography of a Regiment by James Marten.
• The Second Manassas Campaign ed. by Janney & Shively.
• A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg - Volume 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill by A. Wilson Greene.
• Exceptionalism in Crisis: Faction, Anarchy, and Mexico in the US Imagination during the Civil War Era by Alys Beverton.

Seven former regulars still come up empty. Among most of those, that trend has gone on for so many years that I despair of ever hearing from them again. You never know, though.

For the rest, in the onesies category we have:

Georgia:
• Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence during the American Civil War by Fialka & Carman. With this and an earlier one from UNC, I wonder if publishing "graphic history" will become an emerging trend among some UPs.

Kansas:
• Lincoln's Last Card: The Emancipation Proclamation as a Case of Command by Richard Ellis.

Kent State:
• More Important Than Good Generals: Junior Officers in the Army of the Tennessee by Jonathan Engel. As mentioned before, this one is already out.

Mercer:
• Joshua Hill of Madison: Civil War Unionist and Georgia's First Republican Senator, 1812-1891 by Bradley Rice.

Nebraska:
• Waging War for Freedom with the 54th Massachusetts: The Civil War Memoir of John W. M. Appleton edited by Jewell & Van Sickle (Potomac Books).

Oklahoma:
• It looks like it's been five years since the last CW title from OU Press's Campaigns and Commanders series (which has a lot of great entries), so the announcement of Hero of Fort Sumter: The Extraordinary Life of Robert Anderson by Wesley Moody is exciting. I'm looking forward to learning more about Anderson's life and military career.

TAMU Consortium:
• Still nothing from A&M itself, but consortium member State House Press is putting out the following: Rockets, Tanks and Submarines by Edward Cotham.

Tennessee:
• Decisions at Chancellorsville: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Sarah Bierle.

Overall, I would say that the output numbers situation from 2024 going into 2025 remains pretty much the same. Alabama, Mercer, and Tennessee haven't released their spring catalogs yet, but I've scanned through the preorders listed on the two biggest online book retailers. The Tide have only published one CW title in recent memory so I'm not too sanguine about something popping up later, but we may get more news from the other two.

Booknotes: Hidden History of Civil War South Carolina

New Arrival:

• Hidden History of Civil War South Carolina by D. Michael Thomas (Arcadia Pub and The Hist Press, 2025).

The Hidden History series published by The History Press has numerous Civil War-related titles under its belt, the collection of short essays in each volume covering either cities or states. The newest one is Hidden History of Civil War South Carolina. In it, author D. Michael Thomas "has uncovered fifty accounts of lost history pertaining to the state and its men during the war."

From the description: A sampling includes the story of when a "single South Carolinian captured nearly six hundred Union soldiers. See also Lieutenant Alexander Chisolm, who had an extraordinary career [as General Beauregard's ADC]. See the connection between South Carolina College and its Confederate generals. Learn little-known tales about naval operations from the Union and the Confederacy and witness the recovery of the state’s “Gettysburg Dead.”"

The fifty accounts follow a chapter-length overview of the Civil War in South Carolina. The anthology is organized into six sections: "The Early Days," "Leadership," "Blockade of South Carolina's Coast," "Naval Operations 1861-1865," "Soldiers' Stories," and finally "Postwar Years and Remembrance." The text is annotated and supplemented by a scattering photographs and illustrations.

I received a copy early for review consideration. Official release will be in the first week of February.