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Between 1862 and 1878, the view of the United States government towards the nation's money was transformed. Early in the Civil War, the government got into the bank note printing business out of necessity, printing and issuing the first-ever federal currency. Over the following years, debates raged whether the national currency should be printed privately or by the government's bank note printer, the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). Matters came to a head in 1878 when Congress debated the future of the BEP. That year, in a radical departure from the past, Congress gave the Bureau of Engraving and Printing a monopoly on the production of currency, forever changing the role of the government in the nation's economy. Money, be it in the form of coin or currency, was now the exclusive province of the government – not private banks or bank note companies. This change was the result of a rare consensus between Democrats and Republicans and between the forces of the antimonopoly tradition, Greenbackism, and hard money. For various reasons, they were unanimous in believing that the government, especially Congress, should be in control of those matters affecting the monetary affairs of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the summer of 1861, the United States embarked on its first widespread use of paper money: the Demand Notes of 1861. Although their convertibility into gold ended at the end of that year, they remained acceptable for tariff payment at a par with gold coin while they were gradually replaced with paper money that did not share this provision, the Greenbacks. We present daily observations of exchange rates between the Notes, Greenbacks, and gold for the extended period during which they simultaneously circulated. These exchange rates substantiate our revisionist notion that the Notes were replaced because the tariff provision prevented them from generating sufficient seigniorage for wartime needs. ( JEL E42, N12, N22) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologies of internment present unique challenges and benefits. Myriad aspects of human behaviour that stretch over temporal scales of generations and centuries at other archaeological sites are visible in ephemeral traces of short-term occupation at sites of internment such as prisoner of war (POW)camps; resistance, domination, the structure and scaffolds of authority, agency and identity are created, cast, and discarded into the soil. The paper examines some of these stories from the earth through military prisons of the American Civil War, and the ephemeral archaeology of selected case studies: Camp Lawton, Andersonville, and Johnson's Island. Themes explored are globalization and the intersection of the global at the local in prison camps, resistance, its forms, and function within POW camps; and how resistance intersecting with systems of structural violence within internment camps spurred the development of a masculinity in the 19th century during, and after the American Civil War, different from societal norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church in the United States remained politically neutral about slavery and abolition in the decades before the Civil War, partly because of the influence of John England, bishop of the diocese of Charleston. In a much publicized defense of slavery, England argued that slavery was a political issue, not a moral one. Clergy and laity, however, wrote repeatedly to Rome and criticized their leaders for neglecting to promote a ministry to free and enslaved African Americans. Roman authorities, particularly those of Propaganda Fide, were reluctant to take a stand on this important issue until near the end of the Civil War. This paper explains why John England defended slavery and why Propaganda did not issue guidance on one of the greatest moral dilemmas in American history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on his career and his work in the field of American Jewish history. Topics covered include his publication of the paper "Antisemitism in the United States, 1778-1945" which introduced him to the literature of American Jewish history, his opportunity to work at the American Jewish Historical Society and the difficulty encountered in training in the field.

This paper re-examines the aesthetics of presenting various historical artefacts, cultural documents, and ideological narratives at three museums in the United States of America: one tied to the African-American experience, one to the Confederate States of America, and the last one to the Old West, namely the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio; the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia; and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. All three sites are clearly representative repositories and exhibits of 'a nation's memories'. The paper asks how these fascinating exhibits activate, echo, or fabricate the myths that cast the Civil War and its aftermath during the Reconstruction as a 'second founding' of the USA in an ongoing nationalistic 'singing of the nation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the medical histories of a sample of 25,000 Union Army soldiers and veterans to study the determinants of diagnosis, discharge, and mortality from tuberculosis. We find that water and airborne diseases during the war contributed significantly to the presence of tuberculosis. Height and a higher body mass index (BMI) are also associated with protection against TB but these effects are not always robust. As an upper bound, we estimate that the contribution of modern gains in height and in BMI to the mortality decline of tuberculosis ranges from one-fourth to one-half with the rest explained by the decline in the prevalence of water and airborne diseases, especially diarrhea, dysentery, and typhoid played. The paper finds weaker support for alternative hypotheses that rely on occupational influences and exogenous changes in the virulence of tuberculosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the significance of racism in fueling the recent rise of the Tea Party and related Right-Wing political groups and activity. It briefly explores some of the history of racism in this country that has been directed toward African Americans and how it has influenced political developments from Colonial times to the present. It suggests that this racist resurgence can be seen, in part, as a re-enactment of the trauma of the Civil War by the descendants, and those who identify with them, who were on the losing side of that conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces arguments from Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic¹ to suggest that the Civil War arose ultimately because of class-conflict between on the one hand, Southern slaves and their masters and, on the other, Northern workers and their employers. It does not, however, suggest that either in the North or the South these conflicts were on the point of erupting into revolution. On the contrary, they were relatively easily containable. However, harmony within each section (North and South) could be secured only at the cost of intersectional conflict, conflict which would finally erupt into civil war. The Civil War was a 'bourgeois revolution' not only because it destroyed slavery, an essentially precapitalist system of production, in the United States but also because it resulted in the enthronement of Northern values, with the normalisation of wage-labour at their core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper answers the following question. If returns from smuggling cotton and contraband through the blockade of Confederate ports during the American Civil War were significantly lower than earnings from alternative investments, why did private firms so quickly adopt costly purpose-built steam ships in the face of the strengthening Northern blockade? First, we note that the rate of diffusion of steam ships, specially designed to run the blockade significantly exceeded any reported for innovations from the late 19th or early 20th century. Second, we correct an error in Stanley Lebergott's (1981) seminal work and conclude that that returns to infamous steamer, the Banshee (I) of 700% to be quite plausible. This finding of high returns is confirmed by two other historical sources, which have not been previously used. Additionally, we calculate that investors in the one of the leading blockade running firms, known as the Bee Company, earned in excess of 86% return on their investment, over double the profits previously reported. Finally, we demonstrate that adoption of purpose-built ships, significantly decreased the arrival rate of capture, thus increasing expected profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of the paper demonstrates the connection between the abolition of slavery and the Industrial Revolution: steam power changed the perception of labour; new techniques facilitated diffusion of pro-abolition pamphlets; fewer threats to basic existence resulting from industrial advances fostered sensibilities and moral standards toward abolitionism; and, through industrial development, the North grasped victory in the American Civil War. The second part presents similarities between societies in the past that have used slave labour and those in the present that use fossil fuels. It argues that slaves and fossil-fuelled machines play(ed) similar economic and social roles: both slave societies and developed countries externalise(d) labour and both slaves and modern machines free(d) their owners from daily chores. Consequently, we are as dependent on fossil fuels as slave societies were dependent on bonded labour. It also suggests that, in differing ways, suffering resulting (directly) from slavery and (indirectly) from the excessive burning of fossil fuels are now morally comparable. When we emit carbon dioxide at a rate that exceeds what the ecosystem can absorb, when we deplete non-renewable resources, we indirectly cause suffering to other human beings. Similarly, cheap oil facilitates imports of goods from countries with little social protection and hence help externalise oppression. The conclusion draws on the lessons which may be learned by Climate Change campaigners from the campaigns to abolish slavery: environmental apathy can be opposed effectively if we learn from what worked in the fight against this inhuman institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editor of the journal discusses changes that have occurred with the journal in the past year, including the addition of Katherine Finley as executive director and the announcement of a five year publishing contract with the Oxford University Press beginning in 2011. Updates on projects related to the United States Civil War, the reviewing of document collections and the journal's podcast are also given. The article also issues a call for papers on North American borderlands and provides thanks to various individuals.

Roman Catholic Irish nuns formed a large part of the American Civil War nursing experience in both the North and the South. In fact, when Confederate President Robert E. Lee beseeched the assistance of Irish-born Patrick Lynch, then Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, to provide nurses for his hospitals, Roman Catholic sisters from a local convent were pressed into service. Sister M. De Sales (Brennan), born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, became instrumental in establishing two hospitals in the Virginias. During the war years she penned over 1000 pages of letters to him. Initially, the paper provides an overview of the cultural milieu and medical knowledge that existed prior to the onset of the conflict. Attending to soldiers whose wounds changed both the nature of medicine and the approach to it, women willing to move beyond the confines of predominantly private and family-oriented care assisted on battlefields and in field hospitals of various kinds. In these settings, widows, adventure seekers, good-hearted women and Irish Catholic nuns alike offered many kinds of on-the-job training. Their duties ranged from the more traditional tasks of setting up kitchens, organising laundries and writing letters, to the more daunting services of 'cupping', administering anaesthetics such as whiskey and chloroform, and surgically removing limbs. By virtue of the sheer magnitude of the suffering, the experiences endured by these women altered their confidence in their abilities to minister, changed their perspectives on public life, and ultimately redefined their futures in organisation and administration. De Sales' letters serve as a case study by which to examine how, as a result of the American Civil War, the Roman Catholic Church gained ground and its Irish nuns acquired a stronger foothold in American nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response by Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln, to three insightful scholars who analyzed the book at the recent meeting of the Southern Intellectual History Circle. Burton gives an overview of the book, in which Abraham Lincoln is the fulcrum around whom ideas and controversies swirled in the nineteenth century. It then proceeds to clarify points raised by the three critiques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting a newspaper in the nineteenth century was a risky business, and this was especially true in the Civil War South where invading armies, spiraling inflation, and conscription laws were constant threats to physical facilities, financial success, and manpower Despite this, North Carolina Governor Zebulon B. Vance and the state's Conservative political party found the money and the will to establish a new daily to support the his re-election bid in 1864. Campaign papers were common in the 1800s, but while most shut down following an election, the Conservative continued to publish after Vance won. Records and archives document how it was financed, equipped, and staffed, providing an unprecedented glimpse into what it took to start a newspaper not only in the nineteenth century but during America's bloodiest war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balance of power theories have come roaring back into prominence in recent years as international relations theory grapples with new developments, including offshore balancing and soft balancing. Recent works demonstrate the importance of more than just the distribution of power, and have addressed the role that domestic politics plays in balancing. One overlooked aspect of this debate, with implications for offensive realism and the current discussion on the United States and soft balancing, is the role that nonintervention conventions play in decision making. British nonintervention during the American Civil War presents a case at odds with offensive realist theory, as Britain should have intervened to protect its national interests - cotton, trade, and shipping - while also restraining a regional hegemonic power. Domestic cleavages, democratic peace norms, and public opinion pressures do not sufficiently explain this behavior. Instead, this paper posits that nonintervention was a result of British adherence to precedents and conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a case study on the relationship between a public sphere and partisan electoral politics based on the civil war in the U.S. Complexity of the relationship between partisanship and the public sphere in the northern U.S.; Importance of antipartyism; Examination of the political papers written by businessman James Batterson on the impact of the Civil War on political mobilization in the U.S.

The article presents multiple announcements for the journal as of December 2012, including a call for papers on the African American Freedom Movement, the launch of a podcast with Carl Weinberg and Kevin Levin discussing the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War, and the pending considerations for the Louis Pelzer Memorial Award.

The article presents several announcements including the locations of future meetings of the historical society the Organization of American Historians, a call for papers on the subject of the U.S. Civil War, and information concerning article submissions to the journal.

The article presents several announcements related to the Organization of American Historians. A call for papers is noted requesting articles on the topic of the American Civil War. The article also provides the dates and locations for the 2012 and 2013 annual meetings of the Organization of American Historians and comments on several podcasts being produced by the "Journal of American History."